August 2020 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

8/27/20, Progressing Spirit, Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft: Can Imagination Save Us?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 27 Aug '20

27 Aug '20

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p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1728418305 #yiv1728418305templateBody .yiv1728418305mcnTextContent, #yiv1728418305 #yiv1728418305templateBody .yiv1728418305mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1728418305 #yiv1728418305templateFooter .yiv1728418305mcnTextContent, #yiv1728418305 #yiv1728418305templateFooter .yiv1728418305mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Can Imagination Save Us? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft August 27, 2020 I’m thinking a lot about this moment. Under 70 days until the most important Presidential Election arguably of all time, close to six months into an unprecedented global pandemic, increasing racial uprisings, increasing inequalities, anxieties, looming questions, delayed and potent grief. As an ordained Minister, my job is to help people remain hopeful no matter the circumstance. I’m not unlike many other clergy who, in this moment, feel exhausted and often at a loss for words. Does our Holy Book have a word for us, even now? Is there something there within that might move us differently than hope? Can we extract something new from the tried and true promises of peace, comfort, and love, that – for those of us raised in the Christian tradition – gird our psyches? Is there anything there within that might offer a word for the living of these particular days? I’ve always loved the prophets and was recently drawn to an oft-not talked about passage from Jeremiah chapter 4. 23 I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. 25 I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. 26 I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before the Lord’s fierce anger. 27 For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. This passage in Jeremiah’s passage is pretty depressing. God is speaking to the people of Israel – warning them – over and over again about their looming demise. I looked on the Earth and it was waste and void – a harken to the creation story in Genesis giving us the illusion that in this moment, creation is literally being UNmade. No light. No sun. No birds. Food is scarce. Cities – once full of habitation and social life – now gone. Commerce, governance, civility as we know it is gone. The cause? God’s divine anger in response to a people who’ve lost their ability to do good. God’s anger in response to a country on the way to destroying herself by infidelity to what is Holy. We find ourselves in this text right in the middle of the desolation, to hear and feel the weeping of the Earth. Shhhh… can you hear it? - The destruction of the United States Postal Service? - The corruption of power? - The erosion of natural resources? - The rumbling of bellies of those without enough food? - The weeping of teachers, parents & students at the onset of a year of COVID school? - A people who would rather fill the promises of Wall Street and white supremacy – Christian nationalism and heteronormativity - than to be faithful to that which is Holy and Just? Shhhh… can you hear it? A global pandemic heightening our already weeping world? I can hear it. In fact, it’s quite loud. Biblical scholars, including Walter Brueggemann, offer suggestions as to why this depressing passage made it into the Holy book. It isn’t some scare tactic or lame theological exercise to win devotion, but rather that it’s a rhetorical attempt to engage a numb, unaware community in an imaginative embrace of what is happening, so that we might catalyze change. We’re quick and incorrect to skip over this passage. We are numb. We need to be called to an imaginative embrace of what is happening right now. In fact, imagination may be the medicine to tend to our increasing ails. Imagination is often siloed to children and fantasy, so we’re quick to infantilize it as fluff and fantasia. But Imagination, the kind that passages like this one in Jeremiah harken, is anything but whimsical. It’s bold, courageous, intentional and tough. Jurgen Moltmann reminds us that imagination doesn’t point to another world with lofty, unchecked dreams, but that it’s focused on the redemption of THIS world. This VERY WORLD you and I are living and breathing in right now. Facing this weeping world is HARD! We need an active imaginative embrace to face it. When we become numb we’re robbed of our potential to be fully human, but imagination, we’re reminded in Jeremiah, has the power to move us towards human and societal transformation because it alters how we view ourselves and our place in the world. But it’s not that easy, of course. How do we continue to be people of imagination in the face of a widely weeping world? How do we continue to be people of imagination when our culture praises quick solutions, narrow formulas for success, beauty, and education, and provides binary options – at best – for the living of these days? Work full time from home with children who also now need instruction in the home full time; OR, send your children to school where neither they nor the administration, teachers or building staff are safe? Shut down the USPS or save democracy? Pay your rent or lose your home? Stay awake in the front seat of your car after a long day or be killed by the police? Risk your life by continuing to work a low paying job without proper protection from Covid-19, or lose your job? Trump OR Biden? Progressive or Conservative? Our culture doesn’t leave much room for imagination, and thus utilizing imagination as a means for living is our prophetic work and our prophetic call. We, who everyone one of us, by virtue of being made in the image and PROMISES of God, are ordained to be people of imagination and hope. Walter Brueggemann, who writes prolifically about imagination in his book “Prophetic Imagination” reminds us that, “The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger.” So we ask again: How do we continue to be people of imagination in the face of a culture quick to imagine nothing? Barbara Love’s Liberatory Consciousness has a word for us here. Liberatory Consciousness is an intentional way of living that calls us to maintain an awareness of the dynamics of oppression all around and within us without giving into despair and hopelessness… all the while working to change the system and ourselves in order to create greater equity. I think that’s what Jeremiah was doing here. I think this is what cultivating an imaginative embrace means. God helps the people of Israel become intentionally aware of the oppressive system, their oppressive selves - so that they might analyze, take action, and move towards collective liberation. We were on the F train several years ago when my son Zane, then two, asked what that bad smell was. (You and I know that kids have impeccable timing). I explained to Zane that the smell was coming from someone living without a home nor the ability to clean himself. Zane was satisfied with my answer at the time but I revisited it with him later that day. What did you think about that person we saw who doesn’t have a home? I asked, hoping to begin a toddler sized conversation about the right to housing and inequality. Zane thought for a bit... I think, he said, that he has a magic wand he uses to make a beautiful home for himself. Boom. Imagination isn’t wimpy. It’s damn smart. It’s bold. It’s prophetic. It’s speaking a vision of what could be, what might be - what is totally different - into the world. It’s rooted in the cross, close to our pain, close to our weeping, CLOSE TO THE STENCH OF INEQUALITY – so that we may never be numb to that which is real and here. It’s rooted in the stench to make the possibility that much more beautiful. Every.single.one.of.us. is a prophet of imagination. We are all called to put forth a bold vision of God’s Kin-dom on Earth, without asking if the vision can be implemented. We are ALL called to envision a more liberated tomorrow. And we can do that by getting close enough to the stench. Close enough to the weeping. Close enough to the PROMISES. Close enough to the prophets around us – be they activists occupying Louisville to bring justice for Breonna Taylor, volunteers passing out Census information, a Church community funding Black Lives Matter initiatives and doing reparations, a parent chairing the COVID reopening committee for their child’s school, or a two year old riding the Subway. When we listen to the prophets all around us, we’ll stop only hearing despair. We’ll hear echoes of imagination, and each note will carry us forward. At least for today, this Minister is riding on imagination. What about you? ~ Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft Read online here About the Author Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is an activist, organizer, Baptist minister, and mother of five-year-old twins Zane and Levi and four-year-old Skyler. She is the Executive Minister for Justice and Movement Building at Middle Collegiate Church and the founder of Raising Imagination, a platform that examines social change at the intersections of faith, parenting and politics. She has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal, Refinery29, and Bust, and she is a regular writer and inaugural board member of The Resistance Prays. She and her family live in the East Village of Manhattan and fight the patriarchy and examine their racism and spirituality together, one cheerio at a time. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader I work in an Episcopal church with Holy Eucharist at the majority of services. The liturgy includes phrases such as “this is holy food” and “come to the feast” when there actually might be five or ten calories in a congregant’s tiny wafer and nip of wine. Following the service, there is usually a coffee hour with sweet snacks and cheese, hundreds of calories per person! Ignoring any theological implications that the bread and wine might literally transubstantiate into flesh and blood — which I fervently disbelieve — why do churches continue to use such language when people obviously know this is no “feast” and at best a liturgical ritual? I cannot imagine this is an ideal way to attract youth and outsiders to worship. A: By Rev. Brandan Robertson Dear Reader, This is a very fun and reasonable question. In short, the earliest Christian celebrations of the Eucharist were in the form of full meals. “Agape Feasts”, as noted by Ignatius of Antioch, were literal meals where Christians would gather together both to remember the example of Jesus and to create community with one another. However, within a few hundred years after the establishment of this ritual by Jesus, we begin to see Church Fathers writing about how Christians were utilizing these meals as a time for gluttony and drunkenness, as well as excluding others from full participation. Whereas this feast was meant to be a solemn time of remembrance, community building, and opportunity to share with the poor, they became indistinguishable from pagan feasts that were exclusive and usually for the purpose of drunkenness. By the time Augustine arrives on the scene, we see him writing very harshly against such practices and advocating for a more ritualized form of the Eucharist - one in which much less food and drink was offered, and it was done in an environment that would more or less resemble a liturgy of worship. >From this point onward, the evolution of the Eucharist ritual continued until it became what we have today, in most traditions, as a symbol of the Passover feast that Jesus instituted. A piece of bread and sip of wine is done to remember Christ, to the exclusion of the other reasons that the early church practiced the Agape Feast- namely, to build community. In the modern era, many churches have attempted to return to the Agape Feast model of the Eucharist - dinner churches such as St. Lydia’s in Brooklyn, New York embodies the spirit and theology of those early meals in such a profoundly beautiful way. The entirety of their “liturgy” is to gather around a table with diverse people, share a meal, reflect on the way of Jesus, and go out into the world to serve and love. This is what the celebration of the Eucharist and Christian life was meant to look like at its best. Still, many other traditions have continued to see great value in the symbolic ritual of taking a wafer of bread and a sip of wine to transport us back to the moment when Jesus shared that sacred moment with his closest friends. The expectation is, at least in my church, that when we participate in this simple ritual that we will do so as a rededication and recommitment to everything it embodies - namely, being a community, sharing meals with others, serving the poor, and living in the sacrificial way of Jesus. When this is the posture we take, even with a silly little wafer and a squirt of wine, then I believe that this ritual truly does serve us well. ~ Rev. Brandan Robertson Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the New Testament, Part VI: Paul's Thorn in the Flesh Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong November 12, 2009 Have you ever wondered what Paul's deepest secret was? Surely he had one. If you listen to his words, an agony of spirit is easily recognized, perhaps even a deep strain of self-hatred. How else can we read these words, "I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. The very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me". He goes on to say of himself, "I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate". Having thus indicted himself, he offers a rather self-serving explanation, which is little more than a feeble attempt at exoneration. "It is no longer that I do it", he says, seeking a satisfying explanation, "but sin that dwells in me". Don't blame me, he is arguing, blame sin! It is like one saying, "It is not my fault, the devil made me do it!" Next he offers what might be a clue. "Nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh", he says. What do you suppose it is that tortures Paul? It is clearly something inside him. Once Paul spoke of "fightings without and fears within", but while he described the external threats, he never identified the "fears within". Now he seems to locate those fears "in my flesh", and clearly he believes that they have power over him to the point that he feels powerless against them. "I can will what is right", he laments, "but I cannot do it". Once more he tries to find something outside himself to blame and so he repeats his previous idea, "If I do what I do not want (to do), it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me". Still writing introspectively he states, "I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin, which dwells in my members". The word translated as "member" is a strange word, at least as Paul uses it. The Greek word for "members" is "melos", which literally means a bodily appendage - like arms and legs. How could sin dwell in one's arms and legs? How could one's arms and legs be in warfare against one's mind? Males, however, have another appendage, called euphemistically "the male organ". It is clearly an appendage, but it is also a gland that does not always obey the mind of the person to whom it belongs. This gland is stimulated on some occasions when it is quite inconvenient. On other occasions, it is not stimulated when one desires it to be. If that were not so there would be no market for Viagra or Cialis! Since Paul is constantly suggesting that evil sin dwells in his flesh, can we not conclude that whatever disturbs him so deeply is somehow connected to his sexuality? It seems apparent that such a connection is real, for he winds up this series of self-accusatory phrases with an outburst that demands some explanation, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" In other parts of Paul's epistles, he says, "What return did you get for the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death". Paul seems to feel that his life is lived under the sentence of death. He has a deep-seated sense of shame. Paul also reveals that he has a hidden aspect to his life. He calls himself "an imposter who yearns to be true", one who is unknown "who yearns to be known and one who "though dying yearns to be alive". Paul is also a religious zealot, perhaps a fanatic. He was a strict adherent of the Torah in which he had obviously bound himself tightly. He describes himself as one who obeyed every requirement of the law. I was, he says, "Circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless!" He even says of himself, "I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age, so extremely zealous was I for the tradition of my fathers". Given that self-description, one must ask what was there about the Jesus movement that threatened Paul so deeply that he was moved to try to stamp it out. Religious zealotry always says more about the zealot than it does about the cause. Again, he says of himself, "I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it". One does not attack Muslims in the Crusades unless something about Islam itself is seen as an imminent danger to the Christian claims that are being made. One does not burn heretics at the stake unless the lives of the heretics threaten something deep within their persecutors. One does not oppress and murder Jews, as Christians have done through the centuries, unless the very existence of the Jews caused that which was basic to Christianity to collapse. One does not fly airplanes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon to "kill the infidels" unless those infidels call into question the truth by which Islamic fundamentalists live. That is the nature of religious persecution. Paul was a persecutor of the Christians, so we need to ask what there was about the Christian movement that caused him to believe that if the Christian movement survived, he would not. That is the question that fanaticism in any form asks. So our search continues. Another autobiographical detail appears in his epistles when Paul counsels those who are not married "to remain as I am", that is, single. So we know that Paul was not married. He also counselled those who could not control their sexual desires to marry, since as he stated, "it is better to marry than to burn with passion". Paul, however, never sought to alleviate his internal pressures by following his own advice. Paul actually seemed to have negativity toward women. Women do not like him to this day, especially women priests. He warned his readers against even touching a woman, yet he seemed to have a peculiar attraction for a woman's hair, about which he made overt references. Paul also shared with his readers that he possessed a "thorn in his flesh", which he never defines, but which he had prayed for God to take away. It appears that the removal of this thorn was beyond God's power. There is finally one other revealing passage in the Pauline corpus that for me pulls this investigation together. In the first chapter of Romans, a text frequently cited to uphold the deep prejudice in the Christian Church against homosexuality, Paul suggests that homosexuality is actually a punishment inflicted by God on those who do not worship God properly. That is, Paul argues, that God, in punishment for not paying attention to the intimate details of worship, confuses human sexuality so that men are attracted to men and women to women. It was and is a strange argument, but one perhaps understandable to a religious person who feels driven to obey every jot and tittle of the law. Some years ago, while studying at Yale Divinity School, I came across a 1930's book written by Arthur Nock in which this author raised for me for the first time the possibility that Paul might have been a deeply repressed gay man. As such he would have been taught by his religion that being homosexual placed him under a death sentence according to the law of God as recorded in Leviticus 18 and 20. Paul would also have been aware of the books of the Maccabees, which were very popular among Jews in Paul's time. IV Maccabees stated that if one worshiped God properly and with consuming intensity "all desire can be overcome". When I put all of these things together a pattern appears. Paul was a zealot who tried with all his might to worship God properly. He bound his unacceptable (to him) desires so tightly within the law of the Jews that he was able at least partially to suppress the desires that he found natural within him but deeply troubling and intensely negative. This was the internal pressure that caused Paul to view his body quite negatively. The promise of death, said the Torah, was the end result of the sin, which he felt sure lived in his uncontrollable "member". He experienced the Christian movement to be one that relativized the power of the law to control evil desires in the name of something the Christians called "grace", which they defined as the infinite and undeserved gift of love. He heard Christians telling people that they did not have to struggle as he had struggled to be righteous, but they had only to trust this divine love that accepted them "just as I am", or as each person was. Freedom always frightens people who are hiding from themselves inside a rigid religious practice. So it was that Paul appears to have determined that if Christianity succeeded, his security system built on years of binding repression would fall apart. That is what led to him to persecute. That is also what led Paul to exclaim after his conversion, that now I know that "nothing can separate me from the love of God", not even, as he said, "my own nakedness". Was his thorn in the flesh his deeply repressed homosexuality? Other theories have been offered: epilepsy, a chronic eye disease, perhaps even an abusive and distorting childhood sexual experience. None, however, fit the details we know of Paul's life so totally as the suggestion that he was a gay man. Christians could not listen to this possibility so long as they were in the power of a definition of homosexuality as something evil. That definition, however, has died under the influence of modern science and medicine. So the idea of Paul gay and a good Jew are not now incompatible. Imagine rather the power of the realization that we Christians have received our primary definition of grace from a gay man who accepted his world's judgment and condemnation until he was embraced by the Jesus experience and came to the realization that nothing any of us can say, do or be can place us outside the love of God. Paul, a deeply repressed gay man, is the one who made that message clear. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Choosing to Love – 2020 August 31st - September 25th In the videos for this online retreat, Br. David Steindl-Rast bubbles over with poetry and insights born from years of contemplation and compassionate action. In the spirit of true religion — which literally means “to tie again” bonds which have been broken — he takes us on a healing journey that helps reconnect us “with all the plants and the animals and the whole cosmos, the stars and galaxies and everything.” READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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8/20/2020, Brandan Robertson: Progressing Spirit,Humility: The Key To Our Salvation; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 20 Aug '20

20 Aug '20

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p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv8404491503 #yiv8404491503templateBody .yiv8404491503mcnTextContent, #yiv8404491503 #yiv8404491503templateBody .yiv8404491503mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv8404491503 #yiv8404491503templateFooter .yiv8404491503mcnTextContent, #yiv8404491503 #yiv8404491503templateFooter .yiv8404491503mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Humility: The Key To Our Salvation | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Brandan Robertson August 20, 2020 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much…” Job 38:34 (New Living Translation) One of the most fundamental postures of any mature spirituality is that of humility, and yet on both the left and the right it seems that humility is always in short supply. Throughout human history we have craved to know the answers to the big questions that seem to endlessly loom above us: Why are we here? Who are we? Where are we going? Is there a purpose to any of this? Many philosophers and sages have risen on the scene seeking to provide answers, some of them even claiming to have gained access to the absolute and eternal truth. Humans flock towards such an offer - what could we desire more, in a world of constant turbulence and insecurity than the answers to the deepest existential longings within us. While absolute religious, scientific, and philosophical answers can, for a moment, soothe the raging waves of anxiety within our souls, it doesn’t take very long for us to realize that the answers are ultimately insufficient. Perhaps a tragedy strikes that causes us to question how a loving God could actually be in control of the world. Maybe a miracle happens that makes us wonder if the naturalistic and scientific way of understanding reality is missing something significant. Maybe we just start to sense that the answers that we’re clinging to just don’t feel complete - and so we begin to experience moments of doubt. Whenever these moments happen, we are faced with two choices: Either we can give in to our curiosity and suspicions and begin to explore outside of the rigid worldviews that we have embraced, or we can double down, either quelling our doubts by reciting the fundamental claims of our life philosophy, or by simply denying the existence of the very thing that has led us into doubt in the first place. The first response invites us to humility - we become opened to the possibility that perhaps we are wrong, which may prove to be a costly realization, but also is the very fuel to propel us forward on our journey. The second response unleashes an arrogance within us, rooted in the fear that if our system of belief is wrong, we will be cast once again into the stormy seas of existential doubt and insecurity. And that fear is well placed. Every human that has ever walked the face of the earth has lived in the tension between the uncertainty about this whole experience called life and absolute certainty about the purpose and aim of everything that exists. Not one person has ever unlocked the “answer” to the conundrum we find ourselves in - not even those people that we laud as prophets and gods. Even Jesus experienced profound doubt, fear, and insecurity – and they appear in the pages of the very texts that are seeking to prove that he is God. In the face of this realization, we can either hunker down in our narrow worldviews (again, I mean both progressive worldviews and conservative ones) in order to soothe ourselves, or we can take that brave and risky path - the one of humble awe. Humility is born out of coming to terms with our finitude and the absurdity of the circumstances we find ourselves in. No system can accurately describe just how strange and beautiful it is to be experiencing life. The more we learn about the nature of reality and the workings of our universe, the more we find ourselves dumbfounded. Things we believed were mere supernatural fantasies, beliefs of simple-minded ancestors, are turning out to be profoundly true. Our basic assumptions about who we are as human beings are continually called into question, and in turn, so are our fundamental beliefs about God (or the lack thereof). When we bravely gaze up into the night sky, with the modesty of intellect to admit that we are but specks of stardust floating in the grandeur of the eternal, what can we do but allow ourselves to be humbled? There is no other reasonable choice. What can we do but be filled with gratitude to be here, in this moment, whoever we are, wherever we may be? What can we do but remain open to the reality of the most fantastic thoughts and dreams our minds can conjure up, while also remaining deeply skeptical and curious about everything? In the modern world, we have been conditioned to eschew such openness. We have been lulled into believing that either science or faith can give us ultimate answers. We have been enticed by those who can speak with such passion and confidence, and the result has been an era of unprecedented smugness towards anyone who dares to think differently than us. This has given birth to extreme polarization and division, which in turn create a new reason to be uncertain and anxious - that we may bring about the worst possible destruction and judgement upon ourselves. The answer, of course, is not to stop thinking, exploring, or probing the depths of our understanding in search of truth. It’s not to stop experimenting, challenging, and debating our best ideas. It’s not to keep striving to create the more ethical and just world that humans have dreamed of since the dawn of time. No, the answer is to season our exploration with courageous humility, rooted in the realization of our smallness and our seeming inability to ever grasp a hold of the fullness of truth. Our enemy is not the person who views the world differently than us - even if they believe the most outlandish claims about reality. Our enemy is certainty. It’s the hubris that it takes to believe that you’ve even gotten close to the Ultimate Truth of reality. That’s what brings war, division, and polarization. Certainty is the surest sign of spiritual and intellectual immaturity. While it is not an unreasonable desire, in the least, it is perhaps the one and only impossible desire for humanity. As Voltaire once wrote, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” In our present age, each of us would do well to examine our own minds and souls for where we might have allowed the root of proud certainty to flourish. Wherever we find it, maybe do the brave work of surrendering it - allowing our hearts and minds to be opened to the curiosity at the perspectives and experiences of others, and the wondrous possibilities that exist in this wild adventure we call life. When we become a people, who value humble curiosity over the illusion of certainty, then we might just cross the threshold that at last opens us up to Ultimate Truth. ~ Rev. Brandan Robertson Read online here About the Author Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Marion One thing I fail to see addressed anywhere is the mayhem of blacks upon blacks in cities such as Chicago. Do black lives matter only when death is caused by a law enforcement officer? A: By Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer Dear Marion, The red herring of 'black on black' crime often gets cited when the Black Lives Matter movement gains a foothold. I call it a red herring largely because it's raised exclusively by whites as a way to resist exploring the source and origin of racial bias in law enforcement in general, and more specifically the ongoing epidemic of white police officers murdering unarmed black and brown detainees. It wants to deflect attention away from this very serious matter by focusing on something else. Doubt can be cast on the ethical capabilities of the black community writ large by reinforcing the notion of black on black crime. Whites don't really care about 'black on black' crime except as a trope they can use to perpetuate the larger narrative of the black man as savage beast. The simple utterance of 'black on black' crime is intended to remind white audiences that the black male is an animal who cannot control his rage. This is intended to create a context in which the violence perpetrated by white police officers against unarmed black bodies is justified. For white police officers who are sworn to serve and protect, the order to shoot to kill is mandated when they feel that a detainee or suspect is a real and present danger to the police officer or the community. By perpetuating tropes and narratives that consistently reinforce white fear of black bodies, whites - police or otherwise - have a long conditioned and internal fear of black skin. The black skin itself is perceived as threat. When on the job and calculating whether a real and present danger persists, the color of the skin itself factors into whatever calculus is used to determine the level of fear/danger. Black bodies are easily and often perceived as dangerous by white officers. Rehearsing narratives of black on black crime reinforces this. According to the 2018 Criminal Victimization report published by the Department of Justice, the offender in a violent crime was of the same race as they victim in 70% of violent incidents involving black victims and 62% of incidents involving whites. However, never do whites think about, talk about, ask about, show curiosity about white on white crime - even though it is almost as likely to be the case in the majority of violent crimes. What is ignored is that in far larger numbers, black voters favor stricter gun laws. The vast majority of gun deaths in the US are not homicides, but suicides - and over half of those are committed by white men. Whites are largely silent about this. In addition, over the last two decades the trauma of white on white mass shootings in schools and malls and churches has not garnered enough white support for gun control. Whites continue to focus more attention on the trope of 'black on black' crime than on the largely white violence of suicide, mass shootings, and police homicide of unarmed black suspects. Do blacks commit crimes against blacks? Yes. And those really interested in this pattern should read all they can about what sociologists, anthropologists, and criminologists have to say about the reasons for that. But if they are not AS interested in white on white crime, they should interrogate their motive for asking the question. When the question is offered as a defense for white police brutality that stems from racial profiling, the more profitable exploration should be the internal race bias behind the question itself. ~ Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer was granted a Doctoral Degree in White Privilege Studies in 2007 from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. He also has degrees in Theology and Philosophy. He is the author of two published books, Beyond Resistance: the Institutional Church Meets the Postmodern World and Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Hijacked Mainstream Religion. He is a recipient of Eden Seminary's "Shalom Award," given by the student body for a lifetime of committed work for peace and justice. John was ordained as a Christian minister in 1988. He currently serves as the 9th General Minister of the United Church of Christ, one of the USA's most progressive faiths, whose vision is "A Just World for All." He is a frequent speaker on the subject of white privilege, and is especially committed to engaging white audiences to come to deeper understandings of the privilege. He is particularly interested in how whites manifest privilege every day and how it impacts people of color, two things whites remain largely either ignorant of or in denial about. He has been devoted to his bride Mimi for over 36 years, and they have parented three children - a composer/musician, an author/painter, and a poet. John and Mimi have two grandchildren they dote on constantly. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the New Testament, Part V: Interpreting the Life of Paul Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong November 5, 2009 The first person to crack the silence and write anything that we still possess about Jesus of Nazareth was the man known as Saul of Tarsus, who later changed his name to Paul. His conversion to being a believer in and a disciple of Jesus occurred, according to the work of the 20th Century Church Historian Adolf Harnack, between one and six years after Jesus’ crucifixion. If we adopt the generally accepted date of 30AD (CE) for the crucifixion, then Paul’s conversion would be located between the years 31 and 36. The story of that conversion, with which most people are familiar, is hardly history, since it was written by the author of the book of Acts more than thirty years after Paul’s death and perhaps sixty years after his conversion. I doubt if Paul would have recognized any of those details. In his own authentic writings Paul never refers to a life-changing experience on the road to Damascus. He never mentions the bright light that supposedly rendered him temporarily blind, or the vision he was supposed to have had, which involved a conversation with Jesus, or his baptism at the hands of Ananias. I suspect that the narrative in Acts was a fantasy created by Luke to give content to what Paul does say about his pre-Christian life. In his Epistle to the Galatians, written in the early 50s, Paul writes, “You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it”. Perhaps the closest Paul ever comes to describing his conversion experience occurred when writing to the church in Corinth: “I know a man in Christ”, he said, “who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter”. Whenever there is a conflict between an account of Paul’s activity as recorded in the Book of Acts and the authentic writings of Paul himself, the weight of scholarship always comes down on the side of Paul’s own work. >From autobiographical notes found in his Epistles, we get the picture of Paul as a religiously zealous student, devoted to the Torah and proud of his Jewish heritage. He calls himself “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” and a “son of Abraham”. It was into this Jewish faith tradition that he was born and from which, in his mind he never left, since he saw Jesus as the fulfilment of both the law and the prophets. Paul says of himself, I was “circumcised on the eighth day”. He identifies himself as “a member of the tribe of Benjamin” and as “a Pharisee”. He calls himself “blameless under the law” and claims that he actually advanced far beyond his peers in the pursuit of holiness. He presents himself as the star pupil in the rabbinical school, so it should surprise no one that he came to understand Jesus by applying familiar Jewish symbols to him. By studying Paul carefully we can begin to regain the perspective that Paul had, namely that Jesus was a Jew, as were his disciples and all of the writers of the books that now constitute the New Testament. The followers of Jesus were at the time of Paul regular worshipers in the synagogue. That is indeed, as I have suggested in a previous Discussion (see 29th October – “The Origins of the New Testament – Part IV: The Oral Period”) the setting in which the oral tradition developed. Christianity did not become a religion separate from Judaism until the latter years of the ninth decade, by which time we need to understand that at least the gospels of Mark and Matthew were written, and perhaps even Luke. John is thus the only gospel clearly written after the synagogue and the church had split. So during the years in which Paul was writing, the disciples of Jesus, known then as the “Followers of the Way“, were still members of the synagogue. Paul can thus only be properly understood when we hear his words in this Jewish context. In the epistle that we today call I Corinthians, Paul suggests that the two principle events in the life of Jesus, namely the crucifixion and the resurrection, happened “in accordance with the scriptures”. The only scriptures that existed at that time and thus the only thing to which he could have been referring were the books of what we now call the Old Testament. Paul had obviously used the Jewish sacred writings to help him interpret Jesus. The first layer of interpretation that was laid on the memory of Jesus was to see him as the fulfilment of these scriptures. The earliest interpreters of the meaning of Jesus were Jewish people who saw him as their expected messiah who would bring about the Kingdom of God. That was why they wrapped the images found in the Old Testament around him. Separating the person of history named Jesus from the interpretations applied to him by zealous followers based on the scriptures is not now and never has been easy. The death of Jesus was given purpose primarily under the influence of the writings of a prophet we call II Isaiah (Chapters 40-55 – see the discussion for 1st October 2008 – The Origins of the Bible, Part XIII: II Isaiah – The Figure of the “Servant”). This unnamed person, whose words were attached to the scroll of Isaiah, thus giving us his name II Isaiah, wrote after the devastation of the Babylonian Exile, to paint a new vocation for the people of Israel in their defeat. They could no longer aspire to greatness. II Isaiah thus drew a portrait of one he called the “Servant” and called the Jews to emulate this figure. The “Servant” found the meaning of his life not in victory or glory, but by absorbing the world’s pain, bearing the world’s hostility and even by enduring death handed out by the world and transforming it into life-giving love. It was the “Servant” vocation to draw negativity from the people of the world and to leave them whole. This understanding of the crucifixion to which Paul was alluding when he said that Jesus died “in accordance with the scriptures”, was destined to grow and to find an even fuller expression by the time the gospels were written. It was not just the scriptures, but the worship life of the synagogue that also shaped Paul’s understanding and interpretation of the life of Jesus. When Paul said that Jesus “died for our sins” he was quoting directly from the liturgical day in the Jewish liturgical year known as Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. In synagogue worship on that once-a-year holy day an innocent lamb, chosen for its physical perfection, was sacrificed “to atone for the sins of the people”. The blood of the animal would then be smeared on the mercy seat of God in the Holy of Holies, that part of the Temple where God was believed to live. The blood of the sacrificed animal was supposed to make it possible for the people to enter God’s presence for they travelled “through the blood of the Lamb” and thus had their sins covered by the lamb’s innocence. So far as we know from the available written records, it was with Paul that the death of Jesus came to be viewed through the lens of the sacrifice of Yom Kippur. When Catholic Christians say today that in the Eucharist “the sacrifice of the mass” is re-enacted, or when Protestant Christians say, “Jesus died for my sins”, they are both reflecting in a literalized form, this early identification of Jesus with the sacrificial lamb of the Day of Atonement. Paul has clearly made this identification in his epistles. By the time the gospels are composed, well after Paul’s death, the crucifixion has also become located inside another Jewish liturgical celebration that we call the Passover. Mark, Matthew and Luke have identified the Last Supper as a Passover meal. That was a post-Pauline development of which Paul was certainly not aware. Paul dates the institution of the Last Supper only with the words that it occurred on “the night in which he was handed over”. Later, in I Corinthians 5: 7, Paul calls Jesus the “new paschal lamb”. The gospels exploited that identification to locate the crucifixion in the season of Passover. Paul saw in the death of the Passover lamb, as well as in the death of Jesus, an action in which the power of death itself was broken. Recall that, according to the book of Exodus, it was when the people of Israel placed the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their homes that the angel of death “passed over” and death was banished from their households. Paul was suggesting that long before the crucifixion story was identified with the Passover, in the death of Jesus the cross had become the doorpost of the world and the blood of the new paschal lamb on that cross also broke the power of death for all who came to God through the life of this Jesus. So in the writings of Paul we get the sense that the memory of Jesus was interpreted through the Jewish Scriptures and related to the synagogue’s liturgical cycle with its holy days like Yom Kippur and Passover. That identification will expand greatly by the time the gospels are written. Paul is thus the first window into this Jewish interpretative clue, but it will grow and develop as the New Testament and the Christian creeds come into being, well after Paul’s death. There is one other detail in Paul that we need to examine before we begin to look at his writings in more detail. It is found in his constant denigration of himself found throughout his epistles. I refer to such words as “O, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death …” (Romans 7: 24)”, or “I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate …” (Romans 7: 14-15). “I can will what is right but I cannot do it …” (Romans 7: 18) Do these words fit a pattern? If so, what do they reveal? We will look at that next week. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Find Courage & Inspiration in the Radical Wisdom of St. Francis of Assisi with James Twyman On Saturday, August 22, bestselling author and peace troubadour James Twyman will show you how to approach life as St. Francis did — and inspire a new renaissance today – in a free video event: Find Courage & Inspiration in the Radical Wisdom of St. Francis of Assisi: Timeless Teachings for Embodying a More Meaningful, Generous & Action-Led Life. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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FW: Marianna Bailey's Obituary to be posted to OE list
by Lynda C 18 Aug '20

18 Aug '20

OE and ICA Colleagues, At the request of the Bailey family, I’m posting Marianna’s attached obituary. A family graveside service is planned for a healthier time. With deep care to Marianna’s family, we celebrate the rich life and work of Marianna and Bill to our OE/EI/ICA community. Phrases from this song came to mind as I think of their incredible journey with us: Born to forge out of the darkest night, signs of abundant life…. Born to join in the long march with those who care for the common Earth, calling forth new birth… Go forth in love for the Mystery, beloved of history… Sign of faith, sign of hope, signal of love. Journey On, dear colleague! Lynda Cock

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Save the Date for a Celebration of Life for David Zahrt
by Jo Nelson 14 Aug '20

14 Aug '20

From Linda Zahrt: Dear Friends, We would like to invite you to an internet Celebration of David's Life. Please bring a story or two to share. Celebration of Life Date: Saturday, September 5, 2020 Time: 4 PM, Pacific Time RSVP: 4linderz(a)gmail.com<mailto:4linderz@gmail.com> by August 31st. Instructions: I will be sending directions to those attending, on how to join Zoom for the event on September 1st or 2nd. Hope to see you there. Thank you. Linda Zahrt -- 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, Ontario, 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 #OSS-00154215 Vendor of Record: Public Works and Government Services Canada E60BQ-01ISSA/353/ST, Organizational 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.” R. Buckminster Fuller

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8/13/20, Progressing Spirit, Rev. Dr.John C. Dorhauer: White Man Makes the Case for Reparations; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 13 Aug '20

13 Aug '20

| | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer August 13, 2020 Of all the things white allies were willing to activate for through decades of civil rights movements, reparations were the one thing that even the most committed white leaders have avoided talking about, much less fully committing to. In 1969, Jim Forman interrupted Sunday morning worship at the iconic Riverside Church in uptown Manhattan. He had already warned the Rev. Dr. Ernest T. Campbell (then pastor at Riverside) that he would be there to present the Black Manifesto. Dr. Campbell agreed to receive it but asked that there be no oral presentation. In defiance of those orders, Jim Forman marched down the center aisle and began reciting the Manifesto. It begins with these words: “We the black people, assembled in Detroit, Michigan for the National Black Economic Development Conference, are fully aware that we have been forced to come together because racist white America has exploited our resources, our minds, our bodies and our labor….” Dr. Ernest tried to drown out his voice by having the organ play. It didn’t work. That it didn’t work didn’t matter. There was certainly sympathy among white church leaders for what the movement was saying and asking for – but none of that sympathy translated into money. I can’t think of anything that more thoroughly indicts white America’s ongoing commitment to racial equity than this. You can have our words, our actions, our toil, our sweat, our pain, our righteous anger. You cannot have our money. Every time I hear reparations talked about in largely white audiences two themes quickly surface. The first is: I didn’t own slaves. Why take my money when it wasn’t me who created the injustice? The second is: I worked hard for what I have. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps (I literally hear that phrase repeated over and over again – although it really is devoid of any meaning). Let them (the most often used reference whites use for blacks – ‘them’) do the same thing. The level of either naiveté, utter and damnable ignorance, or flat out denial of all that is there to be known in order to perpetuate these mythologies is deep and consistent. This is a case for reparations. As my doctoral instructor often reminded me, think of this work as repairing the damage. America lives with a deep and festering wound. There is a passage in the book of Jeremiah where the prophet indicts the leaders of his time, religious and political leaders, with these words: “You have healed the wound of my people lightly, crying ‘Peace! Peace!’ when there is no peace.” I can’t think of a more fitting way to describe white America’s commitments to racial equity. We have healed the wounds of our people lightly. We cry ‘Peace! Peace!’ when nothing like it yet exists. That whites have made sacrifices to move the arc of history towards racial equity is undeniable. That we have made lasting and significant contributions to this cause is evident. But there is scant little, if much of anything, that demonstrates a willingness on the part of whites to battle long and hard for a crucial and, some might argue, essential missing piece to this movement: reparations. And the lingering and long denied truth of this matter is that the damage we are being asked to repair is far deeper than just the economic damage done to entire races of people. Oh, to be sure, there is that. And we will not come anywhere close to equity or to a more thorough healing without significant commitments to both the redistribution of wealth and the ongoing means of continuously accessing wealth. But the healing sought isn’t only through economic solvency and greater access to wealth for black populations. Also to be healed are the deeply damaged souls and psyches, spirits and imaginations of white and black, red and brown, yellow and tan peoples of America. All races are deeply damaged by the white race’s lingering love affair with white skin privilege – including the white race. Reparations is the balm that facilitates a transition from light healing into deep healing. Whites have consistently shown they are happy engaging in civil rights movements just long enough to assuage our guilt (and feel relatively righteous) and just deeply enough to brag about important steps forward: “Hey, look. We elected a black president!” We have yet to invest enough spiritual and psychic and emotional energy to risk losing our unfair access to and possession of wealth. Without that investment, there will be no real healing. I want to note three important works, and more importantly, three key concepts that will help me make my argument about reparations. The first comes from George Lipsitz’s The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. In it he argues “Whiteness has a cash value.” The second book is by Randall Robinson and is called The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. He connects the dots between enslavement, Reconstruction, disenfranchisement, lynching, Jim Crow, and many other white schema to argue, quite cogently and very persuasively, that the distribution of wealth in America today unfairly favored in the past and favors now in the present those with white skin. The third work is Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness. She takes us into the smoke-filled rooms in which leaders of neo-conservative politics had to imagine pathways to maintaining white control of wealth after the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Their scheming was built on the myth of the black savage, an untamed beast for whom education could never really eliminate rage and passion. It echoed the sentiments that fueled mass lynchings across the South in the early half of the 20th century. It was a myth played out over and over again on film and TV by roles in which black men were always portrayed as unintelligent and quick to violence. Conservative politicians would win favor with largely white constituencies with a more subtle form of racism branded not in the overt racist language of George Wallace and Bull Connor, but of Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater: Get Tough on Crime. The rewriting of drug laws and the consistently unfair enforcement of those laws to incarcerate more and more black men rebuilt the political landscape of the next generation of voters. Among the things felony convictions do is deprive you of income while incarcerated, limit earning potential after incarceration, and deprive most felons of their right to vote. Meanwhile, by the turn of the 20th century it was being reported that within a generation it would be likely that one in three black males will have been convicted of a felony. Get Tough on Crime initiatives got many white politicians elected. It got many more black men arrested and convicted. Statistical data showing the growing racial disparity between arrests rates, convictions rates, plea deals, and sentencing terms showed that this stratagem worked brilliantly. Whites and blacks entered two very different judicial systems. Whites consistently entered and left the judicial system with far fewer long-term effects on their wealth and lifetime earning potential. Blacks entered and left, in fact still live, with lives often irreparably shattered and with little hope of ever financially recovering from discriminatory sentences that permanently branded them as social outcast and unfit for employment. We are only now waking up to and paying close attention to how utterly damaging and sinisterly calculating this whole thing was from the start. Damage has been done. As for the ongoing, now centuries long, commitment to the economic disenfranchisement of black bodies and communities, whites still want to perpetuate the myths that a) it doesn’t exist; b) if it did exist it isn’t our fault because most of what caused it no longer exists; c) whatever wealth we have we earned honestly; and d) none of what we earned belongs to anybody other than us. Damage has been done. In a remarkable work of theological creativity and critique called The Wounded Heart of God, Andrew Sung Park tries to describe to western audiences the Korean concept of ‘han.’ Han, he points out, is untranslatable into English. Likely, it is un-understandable to white western culture. It is the condition of the soul one lives with under sustained and oppressive injustice. It describes the spiritual wounding one cannot escape when: a body’s labor is conscripted for/to/by an oppressor and does not feed you or your family; you know no leisure because your entire existence is subject to the will and whim of another; even your imagination succumbs to the certain knowledge that hope for a way out does not exist. That whites cannot understand han is evident in the bewilderment many whites have about why so many buildings were set on fire after the murder of George Floyd. Without the experience of han, such acts make no sense. Worse, without another framework like han to engage deeper understandings into the despair that fuels such movements, the active burning of property is seen only as a confirmation of the myth created two millennia ago in Greece and perpetuated through western culture ever since: the myth of the savage beast. Whites who know no han will always fall back on that default narrative of the savage beast who must be tamed. Overcoming not just racial bias, but also the economic disparities that racial bias will always pursue, will mean rewriting our shared mythos about what it means to be black and what it means to be white. No real healing will ever take place without that. Whites want no part of the kind of oppressive suffering that damages heart, mind, soul, and spirit with han. Fearing the rage of those who do live with han, whites are forced to cling ever more desperately to the wealth they falsely believe inoculates them from pain and suffering. To be perfectly honest, whites are willing to exchange healing for themselves and healing for those whom we have systematically oppressed for centuries now because of these things: we love our money; we appreciate living in a system that gives us access to it because of our white skin; we have no concept of han and therefore lack the empathy to see it or the desire to ameliorate it in another; we fear even more than the loss of our wealth the emergence of our guilt. The combination of enjoying wealth and fearing guilt creates a massive disincentive for whites to speak at all about reparations. The irony of course is that our unprocessed guilt and shame both fuels our consumptive fetish and deprives us of the true healing we want, need, and will never be whole without. Soon, and very soon, whites must realize that what we have always wanted - our money and wealth to provide - isn’t coming, not until we take the work of reparations seriously. Damage has been done. There are wounds to be healed. Whites are the primary impediment to that healing, including the long overdue healing that can only come from our active and willing participation in a shared and comprehensive commitment to reparations - to repairing the damage. In the essays that follow, I will try my best to lay out a white man’s argument for white investments in racial equity and justice, in healing and in repairing the damage. I invite you into the conversation and anticipate whatever and all commitments you are willing and able to make in order to change the shape and future of a lingering and persistent America in which whiteness has a cash value. ~ Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer was granted a Doctoral Degree in White Privilege Studies in 2007 from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. He also has degrees in Theology and Philosophy. He is the author of two published books, Beyond Resistance: the Institutional Church Meets the Postmodern World and Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Hijacked Mainstream Religion. He is a recipient of Eden Seminary's "Shalom Award," given by the student body for a lifetime of committed work for peace and justice. John was ordained as a Christian minister in 1988. He currently serves as the 9th General Minister of the United Church of Christ, one of the USA's most progressive faiths, whose vision is "A Just World for All." He is a frequent speaker on the subject of white privilege, and is especially committed to engaging white audiences to come to deeper understandings of the privilege. He is particularly interested in how whites manifest privilege every day and how it impacts people of color, two things whites remain largely either ignorant of or in denial about. He has been devoted to his bride Mimi for over 36 years, and they have parented three children - a composer/musician, an author/painter, and a poet. John and Mimi have two grandchildren they dote on constantly. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader What can we as a nation learn from the aftermath of George Floyd's death? A: By Rev. Irene Monroe Dear Reader, Change is a shared responsibility. No one person or group of people can do it alone. Our elders of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement have given us wise counsel on how to proceed. For example, John Lewis's final essay titled "Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation", which he requested to be published on the occasion of his funeral, stated: "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself." To improve our Democracy, we need to listen to one another. However, with the cacophony of voices and continued violence in the streets of America, we miss the vital importance of listening. George Floyd's death was an inflection point for many Americans, and more people are now listening. Nevertheless, listening to one another is difficult because it requires being non-defensive, hearing without judgment, taking notice and responsibility for one's action, and acting toward the request for change with good intentions. In my opinion, there are five levels of listening. However, the one that would bring about the Beloved Community, for which both Martin Luther King and John Lewis spent their lives advocating, requires compassionate listening. Ignored listening makes no effort to listen. Pretend listening gives a feigned appearance to being listening. Selective listening hears what interests or serves one's agenda. Empathic listening hears with both one's heart and mind to understand the speaker's feelings and struggles. However, what Martin Luther King preached about the Beloved Community, and John Lewis wrote about in his final request to us as Americans, requires compassionate listening. Compassionate listening and empathic listening are related. They differ in that compassionate listening not only hears with one's heart and mind, but it's listening with an impetus to help and to improve the lives of the suffering. Compassion means "to suffer together." From a theological perspective, I understand compassion to be both rooted in a praxis of action and an ethic of social justice. In other words, it is a type of consciousness and an "awokeness" to others distress - emotionally, personally, and systemically - with a desire to alleviate the suffering. Also, compassionate listening is an understanding of the interconnectedness between ourselves and others. It allows you to see the "other" as yourself, which is sacred. Compassion listening opens us up to the world and provides an opportunity for radical inclusion. Moving forward as a nation in the aftermath of Floyd’s death and in honoring the legacy of John Lewis, who said, "we can redeem the soul of our nation" if we embrace intersectional concerns and goals to best address systemic racism and police violence. James Baldwin said, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. It starts with listening! ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Read and share online here About the Author The Reverend Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on NPR's WGBH. She is a weekly commentator on New England Channel NEWS and is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists. A Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist for the Boston LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist she tries to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the New Testament, Part IV: The Oral Period Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong October 29, 2009 Where did the story of Jesus reside in that dark tunnel of time where no records exist? That tunnel began with the crucifixion in 30 CE and lasted until Paul wrote his first epistle to the Thessalonians in about 51 CE. From those silent years we have nothing that has survived in writing. From the years 51 to 64, we have available to us Paul alone, but he relates very little about what Jesus said or did. It is not until we get to the gospels that were written between 70 and 100 CE, or 40 to 70 years after the end of Jesus’ life, that we receive a consistent story, but little of that can be looked at as history. Today we can line up the books of the New Testament in the order in which they were written (Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John) and see quite easily how the Jesus story grows and develops. For example, Mark adds miracles, Matthew adds the virgin birth, Luke adds the cosmic ascension and John adds the farewell discourses. From the years 30 to 50, however, there is absolutely nothing that remains, and these years present a huge challenge to Christian scholars. When we can see and date from gospel sources the expansions of the Jesus story from 70 to 100, we cannot help but wonder how the story might have grown during this oral tunnel of silence. In this column, I will seek to throw some light on this darkness. Where does one go to look for clues? I know of only one possible place. If a subject is filtered through any vehicle for a significant number of years, that vehicle ought to leave an imprint. So we study the gospels looking for signs that identify how the material was preserved. Such signs are not hard to find in the early gospels. The first clue comes when we examine how often the word synagogue appears in the gospels. One finds a reference to the synagogue or synagogues eleven times in Mark, nine times in Matthew, sixteen times in Luke and five times in John. Historically we know that the Christian movement was expelled from the synagogue in 88 CE and that John’s gospel is the only one of the four that reflects that expulsion, which is perhaps why synagogue references drop in John. The fact remains that deep into the fabric of the Jesus story, as we have that story in the gospels, is written a very deep connection between people’s memory of Jesus and the synagogues of the Jews. The second clue is to see how it was that by the time the gospels came to be written, Jesus had been interpreted through, presented as the fulfillment of, and his story had been wrapped inside the scriptures of the Jewish people. There are constant references to these scriptures in almost every line of the gospels, especially Mark, Matthew and Luke. Indeed the gospel writers assume that their readers or listeners will have a deep familiarity with these scriptures. In the very first verse of Mark, the first gospel, the author writes, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ; as it is written in the prophets.” And he proceeds to quote both Isaiah and Malachi. Mark moves on to tell the story of Jesus’ baptism by presenting John the Baptist as the new Elijah. Mark clothes John with camel’s hair and a leather girdle, the clothing that Elijah wore, according to the Old Testament. He suggests that John’s diet consisted of “locusts and wild honey,” the food that the Old Testament tells us Elijah ate. Mark locates John the Baptist in the desert or wilderness, which is where the Old Testament suggested that Elijah lived. Only those familiar with the Jewish Scriptures would understand the level of communication that was going on here. The feeding of the multitude by Jesus with five loaves and two fish in Mark is reminiscent of the story in the Hebrew Scriptures of Moses providing bread to feed the multitude in the book of Exodus. The miracles that Mark ties to the story of Jesus are closely identified with the miracles attributed to Old Testament heroes Moses, Elijah and Elisha, or with the miraculous cures that Isaiah says will accompany the coming of the messiah. Once again only an audience familiar with these sources would know their original form and what it was that Mark was trying to communicate. When one turns to the second gospel, Matthew, who adds the account of Jesus’ miraculous birth to the developing tradition, we discover that Matthew suggests in those opening chapters that everything that happened to the infant Jesus was a fulfillment of the prophets. Why was he born of a virgin? To fulfill words from Isaiah that Matthew immediately quotes, or in this instance actually misquotes. Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? To fulfill the expectations of the prophet Micah, who once again Matthew quotes. Why did the wicked King Herod come to Bethlehem and slaughter the male children two years old and under? To fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah that Rachel, one of the “mothers” of the Jewish nation, would weep for her children who were not. Why did Joseph flee to Egypt with Mary and her baby? To fulfill the prophecy of Hosea, Matthew said, who wrote that God would call his son out of Egypt. Even the later move from Bethlehem to Nazareth occurred, said Matthew, to fulfill the prophets. When we turn to Luke, this pattern continues. Luke simply copies much of his narrative from Mark, but when he adds material, it is also out of the Hebrew Scriptures. Only Luke tells the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, one of whom is a foreigner, a Samaritan, which is deeply reminiscent of the story of Elisha healing the leprosy of a foreigner, Naaman the Syrian, from the book of II Kings. Only Luke tells the story of Jesus raising from the dead the only son of a widow in the village of Nain. This story is clearly patterned to conform to a story of Elijah raising the only son of a widow from the dead in I Kings. There are countless other illustrations of the fact that the memory of Jesus had, by the time the gospels were written, become deeply wrapped inside the Jewish Scriptures. The question is where could this coalescing of the memory of the life of Jesus with the scriptures of the Jewish people have happened? The answer is only in the synagogue! Why? Because only in the synagogue did people hear the scriptures read, taught, discussed or expounded. Only in the synagogue was there any familiarity with the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures, which would enable the readers of the gospels to understand how these Jewish stories had been applied to and retold about Jesus. The next step in this discovery process is to place ourselves inside the experience of the people who lived in the first century world, and then the picture becomes very clear. The printing press had not yet been invented. Books were rare because they were expensive. Every book had to be hand copied. Therefore, individuals did not own personal bibles. There were no Gideons to place the Hebrew Scriptures in your motel or hotel room. The only place in which first century people could possibly have become familiar with the Jewish sacred story was by attending the synagogue and hearing those scriptures read. For these scriptures to have been used to interpret Jesus’ life was an activity that could only have happened in the synagogue. For this reason, we can be fairly certain that in the silent period we call “the oral period” the memory of Jesus, including the things he said, the things he did and the narratives told about him could only have been recalled, restated and passed on in the synagogue. We add to this knowledge the tradition attested in the gospels that suggests that the life of Jesus was lived inside and interpreted through the great events of the Jewish liturgy. When that connection is made, we have another major clue. All of the gospels, for example, tell the story of Jesus’ crucifixion against the background of the Jewish observance of Passover. In the story of the transfiguration there are echoes of the Jewish observance of the Festival of Dedication, or Hanukkah. In the narrative of John the Baptist with which Mark opens his gospel, there are numerous notes of the Jewish observance of Rosh Hashanah. The memory of Jesus was not transmitted individually. It reflects rather the corporate presence of the synagogue gathered in worship. In the first century synagogue’s liturgy there would be just a long reading from the Torah, the books of Moses; then a reading from what the Jews called the former prophets (Joshua through Kings); and finally a reading from what they called the latter prophets (Isaiah through Malachi). At that point, the synagogue leader would ask if anyone wanted to bring the message. Followers of Jesus would stand and relate their memories of Jesus to the reading of that Sabbath. In this moment the story of Jesus was recalled, Sabbath by Sabbath, year by year, until the gospels appeared 40 to 70 years after the end of Jesus’ life. Thus we shine the light of the synagogue onto the dark, mysterious oral period of Christian history, and suddenly the darkness of the unknown fades and we begin to see that the gospels are the product of the synagogue. That clue will open a rich interpretive vein, which we will discover as this series on the New Testament unfolds. Paul was the first person to break that silence with his letters that we still possess. So we begin our study of the content of the New Testament with the person of Paul. When he wrote, the followers of Jesus were still participants in the synagogue. The church as a separate institution had not yet been born. These “followers of the way,” as the Christians were then called, represented a challenge to the traditions of the Jews. Paul began his life as a rabid opponent of that challenge. We turn to Paul next week. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements How to Build Resilience in a Polarized World - Practical Tools for Reducing Stress and Finding Balance This online Course runs August 24th - September 20th. The course has a wealth of tools to help bring this about. Using video, reflection, meditations and the fruit of current scientific research we can put together a potent toolkit to reduce stress and find balance. 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Marianna Bailey's Completed life
by Lynda C 11 Aug '20

11 Aug '20

Yesterday morning, there was a small East Coast earthquake whose epicenter was Sparta, NC and its neighboring town of Mt. Airy, NC, the hometown of Marianna and Bill Bailey. Yesterday I sent a note to “our favorite Mt. Airy colleague” thus the subject line below. Marianna died that evening. Our care to the Bailey family in this earth-changing event in their lives, and celebrate the gift of Marianna’s life to so many of us. Lynda Cock Daughter Lynn Brailsford has posted some lovely photos on Facebook. From: Tricia Bailey <tricia.bailey813(a)gmail.com> Date: Monday, August 10, 2020 at 10:55 AM To: Lynda Cock <lynda860(a)outlook.com> Subject: Re: Marianna and the Mt Airy Earthquake Lynda, Marianna passed away last night. Please share with your group and I will keep you updated. Tricia

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the John Singleton Memorial Service Sat August 8, 11:00 Mountain Time (US & Canada)
by Lynda C 07 Aug '20

07 Aug '20

A reminder that if you haven’t registered for John Singleton’s Memorial Service tomorrow, it needs to be done today. Contact info below. Also see note at bottom if you are too late to register. The service and virtual reception will be in Denver at Mountview Boulevard Presbyterian Church, the LCX church where Ken and Zoe Barley served for many years. The Singletons were dedicated members and a vital part of the LCX ministry there. Louise’s new contact info is lrsingleton85(a)gmail.com<mailto:lrsingleton85@gmail.com>. 3101 Old Pecos Trail, Unit 509, Santa Fe, NM. 87505. Her cell phone is 505-428-0623. With gratitude for the life and service of John Singleton and his generous contributions to the work of the ICA and to the health treks around the world. Grace and peace, Lynda From: Wayne Marshall <no-reply(a)zoom.us> Reply-To: "waynemarshal(a)gmail.com" <waynemarshal(a)gmail.com> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 5:34 PM To: Lynda Cock <Lynda860(a)outlook.com> Subject: You are registered for the John Singleton Memorial Service [Webinar banner] Hi Lynda or John Cock, Thank you for registering for "John Weir Singleton Memorial". You will need the special link below to join so please save this email for easy reference. A reminder email will be sent to you several days before the service with the link. If you know people who would be interested whom we may have missed, please feel free to forward them to this link: http://bit.ly/johnweirsingleton Please join us for a “virtual” reception after the service to offer stories about John and being part of his life. If you wish to speak, please email Will Singleton at wmsingleton(a)mac.com. Please limit your comments to two to three minutes. Technical questions may be sent to our tech advisor Wayne Marshall at the email below. Please submit any questions to: waynemarshal(a)gmail.com Date Time: Aug 8, 2020 11:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device: Click Here to Join<https://us02web.zoom.us/w/88438186386?tk=xIrS9Ln2DrpG5dNoTEOi6tUh-MQMru87Pw…> Note: This link should not be shared with others; it is unique to you. Add to Calendar<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/tZwpdOGppj0pEtI_FmLLAKbpS403u2s_eCKS/ics?us…> Add to Google Calendar<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/tZwpdOGppj0pEtI_FmLLAKbpS403u2s_eCKS/calend…> Add to Yahoo Calendar<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/tZwpdOGppj0pEtI_FmLLAKbpS403u2s_eCKS/ics?us…> Description: We plan a virtual Gathering of Gratitude to celebrate the life of John Singleton on August 8 at 11:00 a.m. MDT. The celebration will consist of a service and, after a five minute break, a virtual reception. You'll get a confirmation email and a reminder email again sent 2 days before with the webinar link. Or iPhone one-tap : US: +13017158592,,88438186386# or +13126266799,,88438186386# Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 929 205 6099 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 669 900 6833 Webinar ID: 884 3818 6386 International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kIMTGJ5O6 As an alternative to the link above, you may also log into your zoom account and enter the meeting ID shown above. You can cancel<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/88438186386/success?act=cancel&use…> your registration at any time.

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8/06/20, Progressing Spirit, Rev. Irene Monroe: The “Good Trouble” of John Lewis; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 06 Aug '20

06 Aug '20

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#yiv3695842066templateHeader .yiv3695842066mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3695842066 #yiv3695842066templateBody .yiv3695842066mcnTextContent, #yiv3695842066 #yiv3695842066templateBody .yiv3695842066mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv3695842066 #yiv3695842066templateFooter .yiv3695842066mcnTextContent, #yiv3695842066 #yiv3695842066templateFooter .yiv3695842066mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The “Good Trouble” of John Lewis | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Irene Monroe August 6, 2020All Votes Matter!Civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died on July 17th of pancreatic cancer, spent his life advocating for equal access to the ballot for all Americans. Lewis nearly lost his life on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, when he attempted to lead a nonviolent voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery. He was beaten at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, resulting in a fractured skull. Fifty-five years later, on July 26th, was Lewis’s final crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge as a horse-drawn carriage carried his flag-draped casket. John Lewis, the 'conscience of Congress', preached a lived theology and activism of "good trouble." Good trouble was the work of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and it was an expression of Lewis's faith. The immediacy of his "good trouble" was heard in his jeremiads, inviting all to action. "If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Lewis repeatedly said throughout his lifetime.As a theological trained, ordained Baptist minister Lewis' Good Trouble Theology is an early form of activist theology or theological activism. It is rooted in religious activism of the Anti- Slavery Abolitionist movement, the 1960s Black Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Liberation Theology Movement. Activist Theology was demonstrated in the public speeches, sermons, and marches by Martin Luther King, Jr. Activist Theology was also the work of C. T. Vivian. He and Lewis died on the same day, were good friends, and attended seminary together. Vivian participated in Freedom Rides and sit-ins throughout the South. Martin Luther King, Jr. depicts Vivian as "the greatest preacher ever to live, and was MLK's Field General. Vivian, like Lewis, was flogged in Selma, too. He later joined Lewis and others to march across Edmund Pettus Bridge. Vivian was the bridge between MLK's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Lewis's more direct-action-oriented Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis, who headed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee known as SNCC, was the 1960's version of the Black Lives Matter Movement. For Lewis, C.T. Vivian, MLK, and other foot soldiers of the civil rights era, their theological activism was transformative and lived out amid anti-black violence. I can hear Jesus saying to all three, “Well done, good and faithful servants!""We are made in the image of God, and then there is John Lewis," Joe Biden wrote in a public statement honoring Lewis. “How could someone in flesh and blood be so courageous, so full of hope and love in the face of so much hate, violence, and vengeance?… And may you continue to inspire righteous good trouble down from the Heavens.”Lewis' clarion call for "good trouble" forces us to look at where we are in our democracy. All Americans having access to the ballot is a moral imperative we must address. To honor Lewis's life and legacy and work of “good trouble”, Democratic lawmakers want to pass the 2019 Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) he fought for, and name it the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020. The VRAA would prohibit discrimination against people of color and other marginalized communities by assigning election observers to states or municipalities with repeated problems, especially those with a history of discrimination, and would give the federal government the ability to take action against them if the discrimination continued. These are needed safeguards in this upcoming election. Lewis championed the bill to reverse the deleterious damage done by the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which invalidated a key portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Regrettably, the Republican-controlled Senate ignored Lewis' request. Since the passing of the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Act, which gave African-Americans access to the ballot, the GOP has had ongoing tactics to suppress minority voting. Such old Jim Crow tactics like literacy tests, poll taxes and Grandfather clauses have given way to these new tactics: random voter roll purging, changing polling locations or hours, eliminating early voting days, reducing the number of polling places, packing majority-minority districts, dividing minority districts, and the notorious voter ID laws, which disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters. They are all part and parcel of the Republican playbook. And they have serious effects on our democracy. Here are just a few recent examples of voter suppression against Black Americans: In 2000, the outcome of the presidential race between Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush was decided in a recount of Florida ballots due to hanging chads. In predominantly Black voting precincts, which are overwhelmingly Democratic, it was reported that piles of ballots were left uncounted. The Florida vote was settled in Bush's favor, winning him the presidency. His brother Jeb was governor at the time. In 2013, by a 5-to-4 Republican majority, the U. S. Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder eviscerated Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which identified problematic voting precincts with shameful histories of racial discrimination. Not surprisingly, these precincts are predominately GOP strongholds. The Court ruled that the rule, which historically protected African-Americans and other disenfranchised people of color, was outdated. The ruling contests a fictive post-racial premise that racial minorities, especially in the South, no longer confront discriminatory barriers voting, because Obama was president. And while the 1965 VRA applied to nine states in the South, let me disabuse you of any notion that voter suppression doesn't happen in the North. Scores of counties and municipalities in the North, like New York City, the Bronx, and my borough of Brooklyn, were covered in the 1965 VRA, too. In 2018, the Associated Press reported that 53,000 voting applications were put on hold — of which 70% were Black voters — before the epic gubernatorial battle between Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams and Republican candidate Brian Kemp. Kemp, while running for governor, was Georgia's secretary of state, where he oversaw Georgia's elections and was responsible for the "exact match" policy that states that a voter application must "exactly match" their social security or driver's license information. The GOP tactics to dissuade people of color to the polls pose challenges for many transgender voters who have transitioned but do not have a government-issued photo ID reflecting their gender. The Williams Institute at UCLA found that ahead of this November's election, over 378,000 "voter-eligible transgender people do not have IDs that reflect their correct name and/or gender." Last year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voiced opposition to making Election Day a federal holiday. However, allowing American voters a more relaxed and stress-free trip to their voting precincts should be a no-brainer. The For the People Act of 2019, passed by the House last year, would do just that. McConnell mocked the legislation as the "Democrat Politician Protection Act."The Act would "expand Americans" access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and other purposes," as well as improve access for voters with disabilities, reform automatic voter registration and felon re-enfranchisement. In other words, the For the People Act would modernize a century-old bankrupt voting system to mirror America today, thus allowing for a participatory democracy. John Lewis said, "Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." To honor him, good trouble this November election would be to vote out our present Republican thugocracy. As voters, we don't have to capitulate to the powers that be, because the power of the people is greater than the people in power. ~ Rev. Irene Monroe Read online here About the Author The Reverend Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on NPR's WGBH (89.7 FM). She is a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS. Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists. A Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist; her columns appear the Boston LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her “columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America. Click here to visit her website. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader People say “rest in peace” after someone has died. But, do people really get to rest after death? A: By Toni Anne ReynoldsDear One, There is lots of talk of ancestors, and healing ancestral lines these days. As people become aware of how cyclical oppression and suffering is, there seems to be a collective desire to get to the root of the issue. During my days as a Christian, the closest I got to a sense of realizing the ancestors was when “The Cloud of Witnesses” was talked about. The image that came to mind for me then was one of every great person sitting in the sky looking down. Catching the prayers we sent up and consequently finding ways to help us help ourselves. I even found myself imagining that angels would zip through the ether, diligently protecting God’s Creatures. Somehow, I never questioned whether or not these active agents had peace, and it never occurred to me that they may not be resting… This question makes me think of the way productivity and work require a kind of rest that is unattainable. In this life, we are often pressured to work ‘til we drop. Living to work instead of working to live. It makes sense, then, that idea of entering a realm where there are no to-do lists or demands to be productive, can be liberating all by itself. A realm where peace and rest are inevitable. I’m sorry that I cannot say for sure if any of us will find rest, even in my own mind the forces that we call on for assistance are doing quite a bit. It makes me wonder if this doubt, this question, could form in a world where we were truly free while alive in these bodies. In other words, I wonder if we say this phrase, we are blessing the deceased with something we don’t feel we have access to ourselves. So, if we are able to access it, what do we start to desire for those who are free of the body? Does the potential for REAL rest become more feasible for us after we’ve known what it means to rest just a little bit before we die? I will join you in pondering this question. Maybe these two sources will help you along the way: linktr.ee/dr.rosalesmeza and https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/ ~ Toni Anne Reynolds Read and share online here About the Author Minister Toni Anne Reynolds is committed to singing flesh onto the bones of the Christian tradition by incorporating recently found texts of the ancient world into liturgy, sermons, and poetry. Toni’s Christianity forms a holy trinity with the psychological medicine of Tibetan Buddhism and the eternal Life found in Yoruba traditions. Balanced in an eclectic faith and focused in theology, Toni’s ministry offers a unique perspective on life, theology, and spirituality. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited An Evening of Beer and Theology — A Lutheran Experience Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong October 8, 2009With this description, the Rev. Dawn Hutchings, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in New Market, Ontario, invited members of her congregation and any interested people in the community at large to join her at this congregation’s regular Monday night feature. This activity would not take place in the church, however, but in the second-floor Upper Room of a local pub known as The Crow’s Nest. This was the place, she announced, where people would be allowed to participate in a free and open discussion about theology over beer. It was, she said, a “Lutheran Experience.” In this discussion no questions would be illegitimate, no challenger would be out of bounds and no attempt to proselytize would occur. This gathering was to be a “come as you are” party, a “come no matter what you believe” occasion. It was one more way this remarkable pastor and this remarkable church sought to engage their community of some 85,000 people.One does not expect to experience one of the most remarkable congregations I have ever met in a rather quiet community less than an hour north of Toronto in the center of Ontario. By most external measures, Holy Cross Church is not especially impressive. Its frame building looks more like a house than a church. This structure was originally built to be a “Kingdom Hall” for the Jehovah’s Witness tradition. When that enterprise folded, it was sold to a Montessori School and only later did the Lutherans buy it and turn it into a church. The entrance level is a large room that serves both as a sanctuary on Sunday and a gathering place for all church activities at other times. One room has been cut into this space to provide a small office for the pastor. On the lower levels are washrooms, a kitchen, additional rooms that house a daycare center and storage space. The maximum numbers of worshipers this church can accommodate at one time is 85. The average Sunday attendance is normally about 55. Yet the smallness of their numbers has not limited the largeness of their vision.The pastor and congregation of Holy Cross Church are self-consciously about the task of reinventing worship and recreating what it means to be the church. “Beer and Theology” on Monday nights throughout the program year in a local pub is only one facet of their corporate life. A series of lectures on “Rethinking Christianity” is another part of their offering to the community. I was there this fall to be the speaker at the first of this year’s series. There was a spirit of anticipation and preparation in the air and I had the sense that my presence was the result of a long period of preparation on the part of the congregation.The format for these lectures included two presentations of about an hour each followed by another hour of questions and discussion. They were held in the church itself on a Saturday. A box lunch divided the four-hour day into two equal halves. With the capacity of their space limited, they refused to exceed the maximum number they could accommodate and so the class was closed when 85 people had signed up. To accommodate more people in their community and surrounding area, however, they also arranged for me to do a third lecture open to the public, held on Sunday night in the auditorium of a local school that could accommodate 500 people. That was a remarkable undertaking for this very small church to offer to its community, but the people in that area have learned to expect big things from these Lutherans.On Sunday morning I was the guest preacher at their regular Sunday service, which gave me a great insight into their understanding of liturgy and worship. True to the traditions of the German Lutheran Church, music plays a large part in this congregation’s worship life. Singing is made easy by the fact that both the words and the music are printed in the bulletin so there is no searching through books to find the correct number. In the congregation there were also two male voices of superior and trained ability that made congregational singing a joy to hear. One of these men studied opera and actually toured with an opera company and has recorded CDs on the market. He is a strong tenor and his CD that I have contains most of the familiar chestnuts that tenors regularly sing to the joy of their audiences. Only “O Danny Boy” is missing from his repertoire. The other man also studied voice and is a trained musician. He actually married his accompanist and she is today the musician who accompanies the congregation’s singing on the piano. An unvested choir of about six people presents an anthem each week. The words of the hymns are remarkably refreshing, filled as they are with hope and affirmation rather than the guilt, sin, fear and references to the cleansing blood of Jesus that seems to mark so much of Christian hymnody. The music with which this congregation’s Sunday worship opened when I was there set a mood of expectation. Beginning the service, we sang: “Longing for light, we wait in darkness Looking for truth, we turn to you. Make us your own, your holy people Light for the world to see.” The hymn continued for five verses in which the themes of peace and hope for a troubled world were heard and a desire was expressed that they might become “bread broken for others until all are fed.” The refrain proclaimed the prayer that Christ might shine in their hearts, shine through the darkness, and concluded with the petition that Christ “might shine in this church gathered today.” I thought about other hymns I have endured recently that pronounced me “a wretch” and called me “vile” and spoke of “blood from the veins of Jesus” that might cleanse me of my sins. The contrast was refreshing.Another hymn that we sang defined God, not theistically as a supernatural, miracle-working deity who lived above the sky, but as the “Oneness” we seek, the “life that is part of us,” and as the “love and the joy that makes us whole.” It was a joy to be enveloped in those words.When we came to the “affirmation of faith” it was not the convoluted words of the fourth century Nicene Creed that seeks to build security fences to keep out heresy, but was something the people of the congregation worked on to define their faith in words they could understand. Yet it still contained all of the marks of historic Christianity, including references to God as creator; Christ as the Incarnation of love to whom his disciples responded, “My Lord and my God;” and as the Holy Spirit who was defined quite biblically as breath, the wind of God, the giver of life and as holy wisdom. It was, however, open, affirming and joyously proclaimed. “We are a community of faith,” this affirmation began, and then what their faith meant was spelled out: We share a vision of God, whose spirit is love. We search for the meaning of God in our experience. We share a vision of Jesus, who “forgave those who crucified him,” who in the “mystery of the resurrection continues to live even more profoundly through the ages,” and who calls us to be reconciled with the whole of creation. The congregation acknowledged that the Holy Spirit bids them “to cry out for justice for the powerless and oppressed and to see the presence of God in every created thing.” Their creed concluded with these words: “We reach out to one another for strength beyond our own. This is our community. This is our faith.” I found myself inspired and enfolded as I repeated these words.When the time came for the prayers, the phrase “Lord have mercy” was mercifully absent. That phrase is little more than the petition of a beggar before the righteous judge, and it serves to relate the worshiper to an authoritarian God who does little more than fill worshippers with a sense of guilt and failure. The response of the people in these prayers on that particular Sunday was the ringing affirmation “Let it be so!” They prayed to let the beauty of creation inspire them to walk lightly upon the earth, so that they might be empowered to end to greed, violence and war. They prayed that they might embody the gifts of eternal life and seek justice for all, that wholeness might be their goal and that they might walk in the ways of love. I was almost shouting “Let it be so!” when the prayers ended in the sharing of the peace.The Communion table was open. No external barriers were erected. No one said this sacrament is for the baptized only, the confirmed only, Catholics only, Christians only. It was open to all who were hungry for what God means. The Lord’s Prayer was sung in such a way as the constant refrain was heard, “Let the will of God be done on earth as in heaven.” The communion hymn announced that God is in our questions as well as in our answers and that the sacrament draws those who are many throughout the world into one bread and one body gathered for the sake of the world.The closing hymn was the prayer of St. Francis, “Make me the channel of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love.” The traditional God who is so often located above the sky in our liturgies was now located inside the worshipers who were to be the channels through which the love of God engaged history. Obviously the one presiding over the Eucharist faced the people, for that is where God is to be found. God’s dwelling place was not “up there” or “out there,” but in the midst of the people.I left that church elated, refreshed, committed and filled with joy. My life had been affirmed and I had been stretched to a new level of humanity. I was no longer a “miserable offender” who was not worthy “to gather up the crumbs” from the divine altar. It would almost be worth it to commute to Holy Cross Lutheran Church in New Market, Ontario, to attend worship each Sunday. There I got a vision of what a church is supposed to be.– John Shelby SpongNote: Those who wish to know more about this church may visit its Web site at www.holycrosslutheran.ca. Better still, write a note of encouragement and affirmation to the Reverend Dawn Hutchings at dawnhutchings(a)rogers.com. That can be your positive and life-affirming deed of the day.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Webithon! Spend 24-hours with COMPASSION! What the world needs now is COMPASSION. We are embarking on a 24-hour extravaganza in a Compassion Webithon. Come hear stories, be challenged and leave inspired! Starting on the west coast of the United States at 5 pm Pacific time, August 14th, ending at 5pm PT on August 15. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Marianna Bailey and Bill Bailey memory
by Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook 06 Aug '20

06 Aug '20

Dearest Marianna, Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook here in Taipei with ICA Taiwan, Larry and Evelyn Philbrook with Dick and Gail West. Dick remembers attending your book reading group these past years every week, sharing ideas and jokes galore with you all! I am sorry to say I never had an assignment to work with you two, except for OKLAHOMA 100. A group of us drove up from Texas to support the effort to make every county gold for the bi-centenial of the USA. This was the state that would be holding all TOWN MEETING 76 events all on one weekend, all in one day. I was impressed with both you and Bill at the time. He was tall, humorous and on that day, a bit quiet. You were sincerely welcoming, and interested in who arrived from Dallas, elegant with a glance that looked straight in our eyes and asked if we had held or been to any Town Meetings yet. Just attending, or a workshop leader, I believe I said I had been to the Sacramento Town Meeting in California earlier in the year. I think and remember being in the Song, Story, Symbol group. I had seen you both at a summer program, in Chicago. It was a whirlwind of a day. Bill Grow and I were partners and we drove off to a small town in a county on the border heading north that was known as a junkyard. We walked around the community after meeting the mayor and he recommended we talk with some key people and agreed to meet that day with us. It was a great town meeting and I learned alot about the good ole boy network. If so- and-so said we should meet, I’ll be there! Governor’s letter, OKLAHOMA 100 you say… can we keep that book you keep showing us? Bill Grow was all smiles and very positive and informative to get a yes from each one we spoke with. After the wonderful meeting we drove back to the house, left our notes, ate some food, and then drove back to Dallas. What a special day to be part of for the whole nation and so many people coming in to help! What a great moment! Someone said, a few fell out of bed and will be held later. But over all Oklahoma would never be the same again, and neither would we! May God give you peace, blessings to you on your life journey and this time of transition. Evelyn This song, though only sung while working, comes to mind as a celebration to life… Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! Since I Laid my Burdens Down (Negro Spiritual) 1. Glory, Glory, Hallelujah Since I laid my burdens down! Glory, Glory, Hallelujah Since I laid my burdens down! 2. I feel better, so much better, Since I laid my burdens down! I feel better, so much better, Since I laid my burdens down! Refrain 3. Friends don’t treat me like they used to Since I laid my burdens down! Friends don’t treat me like they used to Since I laid my burdens down! Refrain closing: Glory, Glory, Glory hallelujah, (start low) Glory, Glory, Glory hallelujah (next octive) Glory, Glory, Glory hallelujah (highest octive) Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah…. (shouting-distinct and short) Since I laid, my burden’s down… (slow and deliberate) After House Church in San Francisco at a Methodist church of Bob Stewart in the basement, we would wash dishes and clean to this song, among many spirtuals… Patricia Newkirk, Emily Wood, and many others just sang, and sang. I think George and Carol Walters where priors. (there are other verses, but we did not sing them…only these)

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Global Buzz August
by ICA International 06 Aug '20

06 Aug '20

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... And please click the link below for the latest issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: August 2020 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-20/2020-08-01.php Read the latest ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine brought to you now on Medium.com See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves ICAI Communications

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