December 2022 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

12/22/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev. David M. Felton: A Conversation with Rachel Laser - Part 1; Spoung revisited
by Ellie Stock 22 Dec '22

22 Dec '22

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A Conversation with Rachel Laser, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Part 1: On the Toxic Merging of Conservative Politics & Fundamentalist Christianity | | | | | | | | | | By Rev. David M. Felten December 22, 2022 The following is Part 1 of two columns drawn from an interview with Rachel Laser, President of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, December 1st, 2022. It has been edited for length and focus. _______________________ David Felten: For those who may be unfamiliar, what is Americans United and what's its mission? Rachel Laser: Americans United brings together religious and non-religious Americans to fight in the courts, in Congress, across state legislatures, and in the public square for everyone's right to believe as they choose and live as themselves, free from other people's religious dictates. David Felten: Is this some kind of newfangled organization that's just come along since the '60s in order to disrupt the American way of life? Rachel Laser: I'm very proud to say that we've not only been in existence for 75 years but were founded primarily by people of faith who were worried about the effect that losing church state-separation would have on religion as well as on American society. We are constantly working with faith denominations alongside secular groups when we submit friend-of-the-court briefs and when we write letters to Congress and state legislators. In fact, our board has many faith leaders on it and our new board chair is the past two term president of the National Council of Churches. In our latest round of board additions, we've added a Seventh Day Adventist, an Orthodox Jewish leader, and a Baptist pastor. David Felten: I don't think most people realize that most of the major mainline Protestant denominations support AU financially, too, right? Rachel Laser: It’s been trickier for the mainline Protestant denominations to fund AU as they have struggled with some of their own funding, but we work together with all of the mainline denominations on various issues on a daily basis. And we have many mainline Protestant members who support AU. David Felten: So, since you've come on board five years ago, what have the biggest challenges been facing the Separation of Church and State? Rachel Laser: It's been a combination of the Supreme Court, the emboldened Christian Nationalist movement, and the struggle of many Americans to hold on to hope. The Supreme Court's an obvious one. We now have a majority that is ultra conservative and was put in place because of their hostility to Church-State Separation. The emboldened Christian Nationalist movement is really a reaction to the fact that we're winning — that our society is evolving towards its best self, that we've expanded the tent rather than narrowed it, expanding equality and letting more people in. We've had our first Black President, we've had an unprecedented number of women elected to Congress, and we've seen marriage equality become the law of the land. We've witnessed the MeToo movement and witnessed an ever more diverse religious pluralism in our society. But unfortunately, there's been this grip of fear that's overtaken a large number of Americans who are afraid of losing power and privilege. And that backlash (which Van Jones actually called a “whitelash”) has resulted in a true emboldenment of Christian Nationalism. I was just listening to Nick Fuentes say we need to be ruled by Catholics and not Jews in America and it's that transition in society — from veiled antisemitism to thinly veiled antisemitism to owning and proudly touting and spewing antisemitism as a power move — that both reflects and perpetuates the serious threat to church-state separation in America today. David Felten: And I’ve heard this backlash being compared to the behavior of a wounded animal that knows it's cornered, and so it gets more and more vicious. Rachel Laser: Exactly. But the third challenge is more internal rather than external. It’s related to the loneliness and despair so many of us have felt during the pandemic and this difficult and extended political moment in our country— which has led many people to feel very dispirited and hopeless. So, we need to hold on to hope and continue to get out there and do the work of correcting the record, of voting, and making sure we’re reaching the next generation and teaching them the truth about our democracy’s foundation, including that church-state separation is at the foundation of both freedom and equality. If people remember that the reason we're seeing this level of backlash is because we’re winning, they are more likely to take action rather than to throw their hands up. David Felten: OK, then. Who is behind this pushback and what is the history of the movements that are seeking to tear down the advances that we're making? Rachel Laser: In the Kennedy v. Bremerton case (the praying football coach case that Americans United argued in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of the school district and the school children), we added up the annual revenue of all the friend-of-the-court briefs that came in against the Bremerton School District and they totaled a billion dollars. So, what we're fighting is a billion-dollar shadow network that’s behind the Christian Nationalist movement right now. They have a cable network empire and are being funded by the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, Leonard Leo and many others who are determined to hold onto existing power structures. They are driven by fear of all the changes that are diversifying our country and spreading equality. Ultimately, they are being guided by conservative goals to maintain power for the traditional class of power in America, often claim a religious basis for their ultra-conservative views. David Felten: So, it's a disingenuous embrace of religion in order to further conservative political ends. Rachel Laser: Well, conservatives really did change the theology within certain religions to support their end goal of maintaining their power. For example, when it comes to the abortion issue, the Southern Baptist Convention celebrated Roe v. Wade in the Baptist press back in 1973. David Felten: Until Jerry Falwell discovered it could be a political tool. Rachel Laser: That's where I'm going — and it’s documented in many books including Anthea Butler's White Evangelical Racism, Ilyse Hogue's The Lie That Binds and many others. What happened was a coming together of the Christian conservative movement with those who were resisting desegregation, but who no longer felt they could outwardly advance their racist goals. They realized that folks like Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum were having great success in advancing the same power structures through arguing for the traditional family and cloaking their views in religion. And therefore they pivoted together and joined arms. There was an important meeting where Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority as a way of advancing these same goals: maintaining white supremacy, male hegemony, and Christian hegemony — but cloaking them in religious fundamentalism and arguments about the traditional family. So, going back to whether this is a religious movement or a conservative movement, it blends. In the mid 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention was supporting abortion rights, but by the end of the ‘70s, they actually changed their resolutions and started to oppose abortion rights. The rank and file were then taught that opposing abortion was part of their theology, but that theology had shifted to support the end goal of preserving conservative political power structures. David Felten: And it’s important for all of us (especially those of us who are faith leaders) to be aware of the names of these people and groups in order to shine a light on what they’re up to – including campaigns like Project Blitz (best known for providing boiler-plate “model legislation,” proclamations, and talking points for conservative state and local legislators to introduce bills that support a Fundamentalist agenda rooted in Christian Nationalism). Rachel Laser Many people have no idea that such a thing as Project Blitz exists. And again, it's this sort of shadow movement that’s so very dangerous, operating so effectively and in such a coordinated way. — Rev. David Felten with Rachel Laser Read online here ___________________________ Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit educational and advocacy organization that brings together people of all religions and none to protect the right of everyone to believe as they want — and stop anyone from using their beliefs to harm others. AU fights in the courts, legislatures, and the public square for freedom without favor and equality without exception. If you’d like to find out more about how Americans United shields our shared laws from the influence of any one religion so we can be free to come together as equals and build a stronger democracy, check out their website at au.org. Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Rachel Laser is a lawyer, advocate and strategist who has dedicated her career to making our country more inclusive. For her biography, visit her profile page at au.org. Rev. David M. Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions” and authors of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity. A co-founder of Catalyst Arizona and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David is the proud father of three reliably remarkable human beings. Visit his website here. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Jean-Jacques In my studies of different mystical traditions, including Christianity, I have come to learn that Christ was the Spirit of Love and Jesus was the human soul who personified it on earth. And that He, Jesus, was not the only person to have been able to do that. Others such as the Buddha, Milkezidik had also a certain union with this Christ, the changeless manifestation of the Supreme (God). What are your thoughts on that? A: By Rev. Matthew Syrdal Dear Jean-Jacques, I’m hearing a couple of different questions, about how to understand the doctrine of the Incarnation? And is it universal - that is, can it be applied to other religions like Buddhism? Wow, this is a big question. And while I am no expert, I too have always been interested in these sorts of questions. Christianity does have a rich history of mysticism, as does both Judaism and Buddhism. One of Judaism’s mystical-magical lineages is Kabbalah (Qabalah) which is quite ancient. And Christianity’s mystical lineage goes back to Jesus, and early expressions can be found in gnosticism and later desert spirituality among others. The theological origins of and sources for the Cosmic Christ, folks like Matthew Fox, would be a better resource than I. Quite early on in the primitive Church the image of Christ was associated with a whole constellation of cosmic inquiries: the masculine divine logos of the Greeks or ordering and sentient principle of the cosmos, the feminine and eternal Ruach, the creative breath or Spirit of God, and the feminine personification of Wisdom (Hokhmah) as co-creatrix with God from the beginning. Christ as the preexistent Word for the early church sort of fulfilled all these transpersonal and teleological functions of origins: creation, redemption, and renewal for the cosmos and the individual personality. Folks like Teilhard de Chardin and Ilia Delio, process theologians and evolutionary mystics see the Christ as the Omega point of evolution itself that is part of nature, not just ‘above’ it. There is an implicate order found in the cosmogenic processes of the universe itself that has a divine telos, an inherent wisdom and purpose that tends towards wholeness. But what I hear you processing is what has been termed Christ-consciousness, and perhaps, the Buddha-nature specifically. The famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who discovered the collective unconscious began to view the Christ of faith through the lens of myth which led him to discover and elucidate his idea of the archetypes. He found fertile ground for his development of a new myth of the Self in alchemy, Hinduism, and Christianity. In Hinduism he saw a parallel between the Atman (Self, or divine center of the personality), Brahman (or divine heart of the Cosmos) in Christ and the Godhead. For Jung, Christ was an image of the archetypal Self. That is to say that the microcosm (Self) is a reflection of the macrocosm (the universe), the the true nature of the Self is Cosmic and the true nature of the Cosmos is reflected in the Self. Of course Jung’s inquiry was primarily psychological, not theological. Regarding your last question, “is Jesus unique?” I defer to mythic imagination as a large enough framework that might hold the possibility of both/and—the possibly that Jesus is both “unique” and “not-the-only-one”, a unique never-before-seen manifestation of Cosmic purpose that evolves the species-in-history-creation toward wholeness. All of what we see is perceived as in a mirror darkly of course, and so we must be content with the divine Mystery on Mystery’s terms. And as the proverb goes, life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. In other words real revelation is not head knowledge but a transformation of consciousness in its inner-ground. ~ Rev. Matthew Syrdal Read and share online here About the Author Matthew Syrdal, M.Div., is a pastor in the Denver area, a visionary, founder of Church of Lost Walls, and co-founder of Seminary of the Wild. Matt has begun a new venture called Mythic Christ, a mystery school and podcast for awakening mythic imagination and ritual embodiment. Matt speaks at conferences and guides immersive nature-based experiences around the country and his mentoring and coaching practice as a certified Wild Mind nature-based human development guide through the Animas Valley Institute. His work weaves in myth, archetype, dreams, deep imagery, and ceremony in nature as a way for people to enter into conversation with the storied world of which they are a part. Matt’s passion is guiding others in discovering “treasure hidden in the field” of their deepest lives, cultivating deep wholeness and re-enchantment of the natural world to apprentice fully and dangerously to the kingdom of god. | | | | | | | | 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 us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I hope this note finds you doing well and living into the joy of the holiday season. I want to take a quick moment to ask you to help make it the most wonderful time of the year for ProgressiveChristianity.org. We are continuing to reach more people with our understanding of Christianity which comes from the teachings of Jesus focusing on love, equality, and justice. We cannot do it without you. You are essential in this effort. If everyone getting this letter contributes just $5 or $10, we will be able to expand the good ProgressiveChristianity.org is doing in the coming year. If some of you make those recurring donations, we can not only continue to do so in the years that follow, but we can expand the ways we do it. This Christmas season, I hope you will make the choice to give the gift of your support so that we can continue spreading the good news of God incarnate – news of love, equality, and justice. After all, 'tis the season! Thank you! Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin President and Co-Executive Director Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited June 26, 2013, A Great Day for America Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong July 4, 2013 I was surprised at how elated I felt on June 26 when the Supreme Court handed down its two historic decisions affecting gay and lesbian people. The first decision mandated federal recognition of gay and lesbian couples in states that permit same-sex marriage by declaring the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional. The second reopened the door for same sex marriage in California by refusing to consider the appeal from the court that had declared Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional. Impressive and, to some, as startling as those decisions were, the court in actuality took only baby steps toward justice by leaving the nation in a patchwork of conflicting practices in regard to the rights of same-sex couples. On the Proposition 8 decision they showed no great courage by allowing that proposition to go down on a technicality. This was hardly the sweeping and courageous change that was shown by the Warren Court in 1954 with its 9-0 desegregation opinion in the case of Brown v. the Board of Education. When these decisions were announced, however, the immediate reality was and is that the right of people to marry whomever they love was established, and that this nation will be forever different. There will be no turning back. Surely within a brief span of time, no more than five years at most, the patchwork pattern these decisions have left will disappear and marriage equality will be universal in this country, yes, even in Texas and South Carolina. One of the things that helped to make this victory so compelling and ecstatic for me came when I listened to the reactions of the defeated voices. To our shame as members of the church, so much of that negative reaction came from Christian leaders. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York called June 26 “a tragic day for America.” The Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler, the fundamentalist president of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, called it “a sad day for America.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said “the court got it wrong.” Evangelist Pat Robertson opined that Justice Kennedy must have gay law clerks working for him and that God would soon send something drastic upon this country because of these rulings. All of these responses broadcast loudly that their negativity had been defeated. The political response from the far right was also loud and predictable. Republican Representative Michelle Bachman fulminated; other Republican House members proclaimed that such a change should have come, not from the nine people on the court, but from a majority of the voters. These Representatives seemed not to recognize that in our democracy basic human rights are guaranteed by the constitution. They are not decided by a vote of the majority. One wonders where Justice Clarence Thomas would be today if the rights of black people had been determined by a voting plebiscite rather than by the courts. It was interesting to listen to Tea Party members castigating the “liberal” decisions of the Supreme Court, whose majority was appointed by conservative Republican presidents: two by Ronald Reagan, one by George H.W. Bush and two by George W. Bush. On that court today also sit six Roman Catholic Justices, two of whom voted to recognize same-sex marriage. These reactions convinced me that the decision of the court was greater and more far-reaching than I had at first fully understood. As this wave of euphoria then floated over me I became quite nostalgic. The battle for acceptance and justice for the gay community has seemed like a long one and in that battle there have been both heroes and casualties. I thought of people like the Rev. Jimmy Creech, a Methodist minister serving in Omaha, Nebraska, who was removed from the Methodist Ministry by his Conference for presiding over the blessing of two gay couples in his church, one in 1997 and one in 1999. How wrong those Methodist leaders look today. They punished their prophet. I thought of the Rev. Janie Spahr, a Presbyterian minister, who has been hounded, harassed and finally punished by her church for living in a relationship of commitment with her partner and for acting in the cause of gay justice. Janie was in touch with truth. Synod Presbyterian leaders were not. I thought of the Rev. Paul Woodrum, who was the first priest to confront me about my prejudice against homosexual people. When I discovered near the beginning of my career as a bishop that he lived with his partner in the rectory of the church, I informed him that since I could not allow an unmarried heterosexual couple to occupy a rectory, I could not allow him and his partner as a homosexual couple to do so either. Prejudice sometimes masquerades as “evenhandedness.” Paul responded to my pious words by saying “The heterosexual couple has a choice: they can get married anytime they choose. Neither my Church nor my State has been willing to give that choice to me.” That was the comment that drove me to study sexual orientation with some doctors at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City, a study that turned my attitude, my life and my career around. In that study I became convinced that sexual orientation is a given, not a chosen, aspect of life. It is like gender, skin color and left-handedness. One cannot be judged moralistically because of what one is. This seemed so obvious to me on the other side of my prejudice. I realized then that I did not choose to be heterosexual. I also did not choose to be white, male or right-handed. Armed with this conversion of my mind and heart, my life had to follow and I took on the prejudice against homosexual people as my own cause and that work became a major focus in my career. My campaign began with a charge to the people of the Diocese of Newark in 1984 to study “changing patterns in family life.” That sounds innocuous enough today, but the changes I asked them to consider was having this church bless the sacred commitments of gay and lesbian people. Their recommendations, when reported out in 1986, called on our clergy and congregations to give to gay and lesbian couples “the same recognition and affirmation, which have nurtured and sustained heterosexual couples, including appropriate liturgies, which recognized and blessed such relationships.” In 1986 this was a ground-breaking statement. It was the first time a unit of a major Christian church had put itself on the line for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people. To support this initiative of our diocese, I wrote a book entitled Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, which appeared in book stores in 1988. This book has been credited with sparking the debate on gay rights in American churches. It called for all Christian Churches to develop liturgies for the blessing of same sex unions, to recover the meaning of “betrothal” and to offer it liturgically to young adults when they decide to live together outside the bands of matrimony, and for churches to develop liturgical services to recognize the death of a marriage, to be used when divorce occurs. When that book came out, my life was destined never to be the same. Those ideas put me into the category where the word “controversial” would be forever attached to my name in both the religious and secular press. While that debate was still raging I acted once again on December 16, 1989, to ordain the first openly gay priest, living with his male partner in a publicly-acknowledged, committed relationship. I did this with the full support of all the decision-making bodies of my diocese. This prophetic act set off a massive wave of public and ecclesiastical negativity. Our presiding bishop, Edmond Browning, handed me and my diocese an official “letter of disassociation.” I was told that I had violated “the collegiality” of the House of Bishops. My wife and I then took our case across America speaking on radio, television, to the print media and in public addresses. We were spat upon as we walked through a crowd of demonstrators into a church in La Jolla, California. We were set upon and physically threatened by demonstrators in Rockford, Illinois, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas. I received sixteen death threats that were quite specific. Abusive mail and telephone calls poured into my office. The students at my own seminary invited me to speak to them on this subject, while the faculty boycotted the evening in protest. When one’s mind is convinced of the rightness of an action, one’s heart, one’s will and one’s life has got to follow. To hide in some safe haven of acceptable moderation is not an option if integrity is to be served. This battle in my church was tense and difficult, but attitudes were changing. We were heralding the birth of a new consciousness. Today, in 2013, the leaders of my church greeted the decision of the Supreme Court with excitement and approval. My former seminary now has a lesbian faculty member. Two openly homosexual bishops now serve my church with competence. When I retired as the Bishop of Newark in 2000 we had in our diocese 35 out of the closet gay and lesbian clergy serving churches, thirty-one of them living in publicly acknowledged partnerships. They were a powerful witness to the people of our diocese and to the state of New Jersey. I was and am enormously proud of each one of them. Now the smoke of battle is clearing away. The victory is obvious. Gay and lesbian Christians are fully included in the life of my church and their claim to full citizenship in this nation has now been extended to them by the Supreme Court. There is no doubt in my mind that the struggle was worth the sacrifice. We have witnessed a new understanding of what it means to be human receive cultural affirmation. Justice and human dignity have been extended to one more group of people who were once marginalized and rejected by human prejudice. I rejoice in this day as a citizen of the United States. As a Christian I rejoice that the promise of Jesus to all people recorded by the Fourth Gospel: “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly,” has now been guaranteed to our homosexual brothers and sisters by my country and affirmed by my church. June 26 was a great day for America and let it be said by this Christian leader, it was an even greater day for the cause of Christ. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | Announcements Accessing Inner Peace, Wisdom, and Love * Nichola Johnson - January 11 Accessing Conscious Intelligence or Wisdom * Dr. Sundar Balasubramanian - January 18 Pranayama: A Key Tool Within * Simran Singh - Wednesday January 25 The Embodied Path of Personal Power, Purpose and Peace Read On... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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2022 actions and 2023 blessings
by Robertson Work 22 Dec '22

22 Dec '22

Dear friends, You and I are the continuation of Joe Mathews and many other teachers and ancestors. To his last breath, Joe was caring for the least, the lost, and the last. Sharing with you here some of my actions and words of care in 2022: https://www.robertsonwork.com/post/2022-report-to-people-and-planet. Happy holidays and a blessed 2023! Rob Robertson Work Ecological-social activist and nonfiction author Books and bio: https://www.amazon.com/Robertson-Work/e/B075612GBF

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12/17/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 17 Dec '22

17 Dec '22

“We’re here to put a dent in the universe.” ~Steve Jobs

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12/16/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 16 Dec '22

16 Dec '22

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12/15/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Matthew Syrdal: An Advent Love-Poem to Holy Darkness; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 15 Dec '22

15 Dec '22

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and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 .yiv8621819120mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent, #yiv8621819120 .yiv8621819120mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templatePreheader .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent, #yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templatePreheader .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateHeader .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent, #yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateHeader .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateBody .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent, #yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateBody .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateFooter .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent, #yiv8621819120 #yiv8621819120templateFooter .yiv8621819120mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Matthew Syrdal | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | An Advent Love-Poem to Holy Darkness | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Matthew Syrdal December 15, 2022You darkness from which I come, I love you more than all the fires that fence out the world, for the fire makes a circle for everyone so that no one sees you anymore. But darkness holds it all: the shape and the flame, the animal and myself, how it holds them, all powers, all sight —and it is possible: its great energy is breaking into my body. I have faith in the night.I have always loved this poem. Especially David Whyte’s translation from the German. Perhaps it is because I love Darkness. Do you know this feeling? A momentary awareness rapt in dark night. The utter stillness of a winter-scape at dusk. The deep feeling of slumbering instincts quickening into a wild and mysterious sense of closeness to all that is unapproachable during the daylight hours. It’s almost like a hunger for me, this desire to shed form, to stride out of doors into a night of formless beauty. Out beyond sight where the imagination soars as a heron in flight, and that feathered surge of dampening sound awakens alluring depths within our limited vision.Advent is a season especially attuned to the Darkness, and it’s rhythms—not primarily the light. For the Darkness has a strange luminosity all its own, but our eyes must readjust. David Whyte picks up on this theme in his poem Sweet Darkness “There, you can be sure you are not beyond love / The Dark will be your home tonight / The Night will give us a horizon further than we can see.” It offers imaginal landscapes for the soul, we are invited to slow to hushed walking pace through deserts and moorlands. Advent is myth-time. A time to wander and wonder, to remember as a people all we have lost. All that glances back at us, eyes glimmering across the circle of light we now stand in. Darkness is a kind of memory that reaches down and in through the feeling function, it holds encoded the memory of time and origins you might say. Advent is womb-time, and what is coming we cannot see but only feel. But one thing is for certain it is here, within and among, watching just beyond the ring of firelight. For me this poem is Rilke’s Advent birth narrative whether he intended it or not—it is mytho-poetic. His words can become our words, his love-prayer—our love-prayer. If we have the courage to seek the One beyond the fire circle.“You Darkness from which I come” - Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme. The direct address to the Darkness—living, intimate, and sentient—is much more than stylized personification. We are invited to listen in as the poet speaks to the dark ground of his being in the quiet watches of the night. Speaks a poem of love to the dark God beyond the firelight of consciousness.“I love you more than all the fires that fence out the world, for the fire makes a circle [of light] for everyone so that no one sees you anymore. But the darkness holds it all.”Other translations speak of the fires that “fence in the world,” "als die Flamme, welche die Welt begrenzt,” but Whyte is seeing something important here in Rilke’s vision. The World dwells in night and it is we who no longer see her anymore. The dark keeper of the fire, whose embrace holds all. All laughter, all tears, all pain and fear, conflict and war. Nothing is excluded from the embrace of darkness.Advent is a season to let ourselves be held in the peculiar way that only darkness can do. It is an ancient song sung in the meandering hollows and wells of fallow time.The eternal feminine Darkness from which we all come, that great and nurturing Power that holds it all: /the shape and the flame, /the animal and myself, /how it holds them, /all powers, all sight —The “fire” that makes a “circle” is a profound image. For me it speaks to our promethean drive to be sole creators in a self-made world, alluding to both the primal technology of fire that symbolically defines our species and to its mythic origins in the collective unconscious. A powerful driver indeed behind our history of storytelling, Empire, and constant need to expand our territories.And so I want to push back just a bit against the masculine light-cult that is Western civilization, (symbolized for example in Edison and Tesla) and the modern era’s progressive banishment of darkness, and labeling of it as ‘evil’. The endless displays of visual connection, the need to make everything visible only to expose, to extract, to define, to control. As if we could domesticate the darkness. We may have cast it from our homes and churches, but It has just gone underground. We banished it with our promethean theologies because it didn’t support and export Christendom values.The printed word is fire, but the spoken word is darkness. Oral stories move and feed just inside the edge of the wood at night. But our printed word would appropriate oral wisdom for its own and post them like memes. A little sleight-of-hand trickery, so that we don’t have to really go into the dark where wisdom can be found. Advent and Christmas can be one of the few liturgical seasons we can really embrace the dark, really cultivate storytelling as a people, reclaim our myth-telling roots to counterbalance the artificial light of corporatized cultural ways the church unwittingly reinforces.Don’t get me wrong. We need Fire too. Fire is an archetypal image of spirit, and ingenuity, and creative advancement in ways never before dreamed possible. We need both the Fire and the Darkness. But perhaps the fire we stole from the gods has grown too big, and all of our “biggering” to borrow Dr. Seuss’ term, in both church and culture is spreading this fire. And perhaps too many forests are burning, and too many of the old songs and stories have gone up in smoke as sparks reaching for the stars.For me, Mythic Christ Mystery School has been an inquiry primarily into the darkness of the deep imagination—a realm of visionary consciousness—in order to begin to reclaim what is still alive and pulsing in the heart of the Christian mythos, through experiential practices and ways of being in community. We explore more broadly the nature of myth, archetype, story, encoded in sacred place and particular landscapes, to understand the scriptures and ourselves from the perspective of oral tradition, belonging and emergence.To counteract the structural forces of injustice and inequity on so many levels, it is important we take seriously other ways of knowing and being, remembering and becoming. We explore de-centered values that are sacred and truly supportive of soulful community. There are other ways to envision justice other than through the harsh daylight of politics and faith. Other ways of being church outside the brick and mortar walls, in wooded-walls clothed with moss and meadow, hanging usnea or apple bark. Late it is, in this fourth watch of the night. The hour of God. The thief who comes might just be the deliverer we need but don’t expect. May we return for now to the slow womb-time and deep dreamtime. The Day will come, but now is the hour of imagination and the dreaming.“And it is possible: its great Power is breaking into my body. I have faith in the night.”Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme, ich liebe dich mehr als die Flamme, welche die Welt begrenzt, indem sie glänzt für irgend einen Kreis, aus dem heraus kein Wesen von ihr weiß.Aber die Dunkelheit hält alles an sich: Gestalten und Flammen, Tiere und mich, wie sie's errafft, Menschen und Mächte. --Und es kann sein: eine große Kraft rührt sich in meiner Nachbarschaft.~ Rev. Matthew SyrdalRead online here About the Author Matthew Syrdal, M.Div., is a pastor in the Denver area, a visionary, founder of Church of Lost Walls, and co-founder of Seminary of the Wild. Matt has begun a new venture called Mythic Christ, a mystery school and podcast for awakening mythic imagination and ritual embodiment. Matt speaks at conferences and guides immersive nature-based experiences around the country and his mentoring and coaching practice as a certified Wild Mind nature-based human development guide through the Animas Valley Institute. His work weaves in myth, archetype, dreams, deep imagery, and ceremony in nature as a way for people to enter into conversation with the storied world of which they are a part. Matt’s passion is guiding others in discovering “treasure hidden in the field” of their deepest lives, cultivating deep wholeness and re-enchantment of the natural world to apprentice fully and dangerously to the kingdom of god. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader How can we work to improve religious tolerance and increase respect for diversity? A: By Rev. Irene MonroeDear Reader,We are residing in such a polarized time. I wish the Christian Right would meet the right Christians to understand that religious tolerance embraces the fact that, as Americans, we are people of many faith traditions and are atheists, agnostics, and "nones." More than a decade now, when the December holiday season rolls in, we can always count on a yearly kerfuffle about what the appropriate season's greeting should be, exemplifying the continued chapter in the culture "War on Christmas." This year we can see the divide along religious and political party lines. On his "Merry Christmas USA Thank You Tour," former President Trump decorated his stages with Christmas trees. Former President Obama acknowledged other holidays this time of year - Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Saturnalia, Festivus, and Ramadan - and embraced an all-inclusive seasonal greeting symbolic of our nation's diverse religious and cultural landscape with two simple words — Happy Holidays! According to Public Policy Polling (PPP), if you say "Merry Christmas," you insult liberals, and if you say "Happy Holidays," you vex conservatives. Also, PPP revealed that 57 percent of Republicans believe there's an ongoing war on Christmas. Truth be told, Muslims, secular progressives, Jews, and atheists have never been the folks trying to abolish Christmas. The intolerance of a multicultural theme for this holiday season has to do about a backlash toward a country growing more religiously pluralistic. This holiday's central message is embracing and celebrating human differences and diversity. And it is with this message that I know all people — religious and non-religious, straight and LGBTQ+, black and white — can be included to enjoy and to celebrate and acknowledge this season with one simple greeting. Happy Holidays!~ Rev. Irene Monroe Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Irene 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 in the Boston LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. Monroe states 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 religion’s role 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 us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Birth of Jesus, Conclusions: Part XVI Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong June 20, 2013Luke concludes his birth story with a series of episodes designed to point to the story of the adult Jesus. First, in Luke’s story, the shepherds depart, while Mary “ponders,” then the “Holy Family” goes through the initiation rites of Judaism to root Jesus deeply inside of the faith of his people. He is circumcised, Luke says, on the eighth day and given the name Jesus (Joshua or Yeshuah in Hebrew/Aramaic). Then he is presented at the Temple on the 40th day, at which time a prophetess named Anna, later to be viewed in mythology as the mother of Mary, and an old priest named Simeon are introduced in brief cameo appearances. Simeon proclaims that in this baby he has seen the promised salvation that will bring light to the Gentiles and glory to Israel. Next, and in contrast to Matthew, who has the Holy Family flee into Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod, Luke has them make a rather leisurely journey back to their home in Nazareth. This episode of Luke’s birth narrative is then closed with a summary statement informing his readers that “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was with him.” This infancy narrative is thus completed.Luke then describes an episode that turns out to be the only story in the entire New Testament that purports to inform us about Jesus’ childhood. It is the narrative of the twelve year old Jesus being taken up to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover. It is a puberty rite story couched in religious terms, a kind of primitive bar mitzvah filled with familiar mythological content. It was designed to show just how remarkable the child Jesus really was long before his introduction to the wider public as an adult figure. It also has deep roots in the Hebrew Scriptures that we need to identify. Those familiar with these scriptures would also be familiar with the life of the prophet Samuel. He, like Jesus, was said to have had something of a miraculous birth. His mother Hannah was childless; she had been unable to conceive. In that patriarchal world, the woman was blamed for this condition and so she was called “barren.” She was one of two wives married to a man named Elkanah. His second wife, Peninnah, had children and was honored by her husband because of that. Hannah, however, felt shame at her inability to have a child and was even ridiculed by Peninnah because, as she said, “the Lord had closed her womb.” Hannah went up regularly to a “holy place,” the shrine at Shiloh. On one of those occasions, she was at the gate of the shrine weeping and praying for a child. In her prayers she stated her willingness to dedicate her child to God if her prayers were answered. In the emotional power of this prayer, she came to the attention of an old priest named Eli who thought at first that she was drunk.“How long will you be drunken?” he asks her as the conversation began. Hannah responded, “No, my Lord, I am a woman sorely troubled. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” Hearing the content of her prayer, Eli promised her that her prayer would be answered. So he said to her: “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grant your petition.” Hannah then returned home and her barrenness was overcome; Samuel was born. It is a touching story.Luke is clearly familiar with the story of Hannah. When Hannah’s child, Samuel, was born, she sang a song of praise that began with the words: “My heart exults in the Lord.” Luke uses Hannah’s song as the model for the song he puts in the mouth of Mary that we call The Magnificat. The Magnificat begins with the words: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”I believe there is one other oblique reference to the story of Samuel in Luke’s birth narrative. In his genealogy of Jesus in chapter 3, Luke lists a person named Heli as the father of Joseph and thus the grandfather of Jesus. Heli is simply the Greek spelling of Eli. The old priest in the book of Samuel is thus related, Luke says, to the life of Jesus. Finally, when Mary and Joseph take the boy Jesus to present him in the Temple when he was 12 years old, Luke appears to base this story on the account of Hannah taking the boy Samuel “when he was weaned” to the shrine at Shiloh, where he would serve the priest Eli as the fulfillment of Hannah’s vow to dedicate her son, if she became pregnant with a boy, to the service of God. The visit to the Temple completed the cycle of Jewish initiatory liturgies. Jesus was, says Luke, circumcised on the 8th day, presented on the 40th day and dedicated at the age of 12 in the Temple at Jerusalem. The child Jesus was thus born with the destiny to serve God in all aspects of the Jewish tradition.This visit to the Temple at age 12 is also filled by Luke with hints of things to come. The boy Jesus claims the Temple for himself in his childhood, just as he will do later as an adult. In this episode, Jesus acknowledges God as his father, claiming this Temple “as my father’s house,” and stating that he must be about his “father’s business.” He is also in this narrative, said to have been lost “for three days” and when he was found, he was in the “my Father’s house,” revealing echoes of another three days in which Luke will say he was lost until raised by God into a new dimension of God’s presence. His body will then be referred to as the “New Temple.”It is interesting to note that Luke then moves immediately to the story of Jesus’ baptism by John in the River Jordan and the inauguration of his messianic career. Now Joseph disappears from Luke’s text and takes his place in the mythology of the ages, out of which he had come in the first place. With this story the birth narratives have completed their purpose. The meaning of Jesus’ life has been introduced to his followers. With this story we also reach the end of this series of columns, so it is time to summarize.There is nothing in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke that was ever intended to be viewed as literal history. Both of these gospel authors knew that the birth narratives were designed to explain the source of power experienced in the adult Jesus of Nazareth. Both were trying to say that they had met a power and presence in the life of Jesus that human beings could not themselves have ever produced. Both picked symbols out of Hebrew history to flesh out their stories. Both knew that they were introducing a new idea into the developing Christian tradition. Both were surely aware that their stories of a miraculous birth for Jesus were unknown to Paul who portrayed Jesus as one who was “born of a woman,” as every human being is, and “born under the law,” as every Jew was. The only special claim Paul made for Jesus was that he “was descended from the House of David, according to the flesh.” God for Paul had declared Jesus to be the son of God, not through a miraculous birth, but through “his resurrection from the dead.” (See Romans 1:1-4).They also knew that Mark, whom both Matthew and Luke had incorporated into their gospel accounts, not only had no birth story, but he had also stated that God first entered Jesus at his baptism. Mark even portrayed Jesus’ mother as thinking that the adult Jesus was “beside himself” (see Mark 3), that is, “out of his mind,” when he came to his adult life. That is not the response of one who has been told in advance that her child will be holy, “the son of the highest.” No, both Matthew and Luke were not writing about the literal birth of Jesus. That will be the later agenda of the fundamentalists.Then we saw how these two evangelists developed their stories out of the Hebrew Scriptures. Matthew borrowed from Isaiah, who wrote of kings coming to the “brightness of God’s rising” and bringing with them “gold and frankincense,” to get his narrative of wise men and their guiding star. He adapted for his narrative of Jesus a Moses story about a wicked king who tried to destroy God’s anointed one at birth. He has Jesus repeat the life cycle of the Jewish nation by coming “out of Egypt.” He creates the character of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, out of the account of Joseph the patriarch in the book of Genesis (37-50). The two Joseph’s are all but indistinguishable.Luke also borrows images from the Old Testament to describe the birth of John the Baptist. He lifts a story from the book of Daniel to explain how John’s father, Zechariah, got the news that he was to be a father and why he could not speak. He lifts the account of John post-menopausal birth out of the Abraham and Sarah story in the book of Genesis. He populates Bethlehem with shepherds because it was the birthplace of David, the “Shepherd King.” He borrows a text from Isaiah to get his manger and a text from the Wisdom of Solomon to get his “swaddling cloths.” Both narratives are artfully crafted pieces of haggadic Midrash. No Jewish reader would fail to notice that. The two stories are deeply contradictory if one treats them literally, but both serve as overtures to the story of the life of Jesus, introducing themes that will be developed more fully in their later gospel accounts.For most people the birth stories are probably the most familiar part of the New Testament. They are also probably the most misunderstood. They are victimized by the annual Christmas pageants held in most churches. They are distorted by hymns sung, oratorios heard and sermons preached each Christmas season. They are celebrated in lawn crèches built, Christmas cards sent and store windows dressed during the holiday season. Like all birth stories, however, they are not really about the birth of the hero, but about the adult life of the hero. Once we break them out of their literal prison, they take on a new wonder, a new meaning and a new power. That is what these 17 columns over the past two years have also been designed to do. I hope they have succeeded and that the next Christmas season can be entered with open minds and hearts and without the need to defend Jesus from those who think that the only way to be true to Jesus is to literalize the words of the New Testament.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | Christian Mystics with Matthew Fox Thursday, December 15, 20227 7pm/ET 6pm CT- 5pm/MT-4pm PT The daily readings Matthew Fox shares here, quotations from Christianity’s greatest mystics and prophets of the past two thousand years, speak to the sacredness of the earth, awe and gratitude, darkness and shadow, compassion and creativity, sacred sexuality, and peacemaking. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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12/15/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 15 Dec '22

15 Dec '22

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12/14/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 14 Dec '22

14 Dec '22

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12/13/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 13 Dec '22

13 Dec '22

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12/12/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 12 Dec '22

12 Dec '22

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12/11/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 11 Dec '22

11 Dec '22

The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. This we know. All things are connected. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves. ~ ~ ~ Chief Seattle

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