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Address change
by marilyncrocker＠juno.com 30 Jan '19

30 Jan '19

Hi Tim, Could you change my address for incoming OE and Dialogue e-mail from marilyncrocker(a)juno.com to maricrocker(a)gmail.com Many thanks. I've missed a lot of "connectivity" since shifting to a new address. Marilyn Dr. Marilyn R. Crocker 60 Charles Wesley Ct. Wells ME 04090

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Re: [Dialogue] Everyone talks about it
by Cynthia Vance 28 Jan '19

28 Jan '19

What is this about.The URL doesn't work. Cynthia Vance -----Original Message----- From: Mirja Hanson via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; dialogue <dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net>; diane s <diane.s(a)usfamily.net>; Diane Sprague <Diane.Sprague(a)state.mn.us>; Diane Stadler <Diane.Stadler(a)WellsFargo.COM>; Diane Will <Diane.Will(a)southcentral.edu>; diek9569 <diek9569(a)stthomas.edu>; diekmann <diekmann(a)mn.uswest.net>; dinah <dinah(a)alumni.duke.edu>; DinahSchuster <DinahSchuster(a)comcast.net> Cc: Mirja Hanson <mirjah(a)aol.com> Sent: Mon, Jan 28, 2019 5:03 am Subject: [Dialogue] Everyone talks about it Still available http://online.christscalendar.org Mirja Hanson _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Everyone talks about it
by Mirja Hanson 28 Jan '19

28 Jan '19

Still available http://online.christscalendar.org <http://online.christscalendar.org/> Mirja Hanson

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1/24/19, Progressing Spirit: The Church is Dying Because of Graying – But Not Why You Think
by Ellie Stock 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

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!important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 h4{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 .yiv6725855302mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent, #yiv6725855302 .yiv6725855302mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templatePreheader{display:block !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templatePreheader .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent, #yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templatePreheader .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateHeader .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent, #yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateHeader .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateBody .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent, #yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateBody .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateFooter .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent, #yiv6725855302 #yiv6725855302templateFooter .yiv6725855302mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} This is simply about the church (remember, the people are the church) . | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Church is Dying Because of Graying – But Not Why You Think | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev.Mark Sandlin on January 24, 2019I often joke that I’m a pretty good minister, but not a very good Presbyterian minister. That being said, I am undeniably Presbyterian. So, on the weekends when I’m not in a pulpit, I’ve been a long-term resident of the back pews. (It may be that I’m a better Presbyterian than I give myself credit for.)Over the past three to four decades, I’ve noticed something. You probably have, too. The back of the heads that I find myself trying to see past have been gradually going gray or bald.It turns out that that anecdotal evidence is backed up but some pretty sobering numbers. A 2009 study out of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows that churches are indeed aging in terms of the average age of members. Some denominations, such as old-line Protestants, have a significant proportion of their congregations in which fifty percent of their members are over the age of 65.Even as church membership is declining (and in many ways directly related to it), the percentage of any given church’s older population tends to be increasing. Because of this, the Hartford Institute’s research tells us that “one-fourth of congregations will lose half their memberships in 20 years.”We have a problem. If the church is its people and not the building, the church is dying.However, it’s not dying because its aging members are dying, at least not precisely. The seeming oncoming demise is related to the aging of the Church.Before we look at that though, let’s look at how we got here, because part of this increase in the aging of the church is simply the mathematical outcome of the church losing its middle age members.There was a time, frequently referred to as “the good ole’ days,” when the church was the center of society. A large percentage of a community’s life centered around the church. It was not only the moral compass and center for their lives, but it was the social and philanthropic center of their lives as well. It was really unlikely that people would challenge the status quo that was being established. Challenging the thing that defined your community and was the center piece of many people’s daily lives and activities would have probably been a really good way to make sure you were not accepted by those who had power in the establishment and ultimately you would probably be pushed out to the margins of the circle of society, if included in it at all. So, the status quo that’s being established goes unchallenged and ever-unchanging.As you could probably guess, this kind of influence (and let’s just be honest: power) was somewhat intoxicating. The Church, particularly its leaders, began to believe the myth that they had established. The myth wasn’t that they were at the center of community, because in many ways they really were. The myth that they had begun to believe was that they deserved to be there, that it was by some divine right that they have so much influence and power.It shouldn’t be surprising that an organization founded on resisting the powerful and on including everyone, can point to a time when they became powerful and began excluding those who didn’t believe the dogmas, as the beginning of their decline.You see, over time, society began changing. The Church, in its perceived place of godly instituted influence and power, did not change even though it has a history of changing and, at times, doing so dynamically. The further society moved down the time line, the more society changed, and the more the church did not. With each passing year the Church became less relevant for a quickly changing society.We’ve ended up in a place where society has moved on and, much to the surprise of the Church, it has done just fine without us. People, it turns out, are a reflection of a very responsive and ever dynamic God and are able to find other social centers, other ways to express their philanthropic needs, and other ways to fulfill their spiritual desires. This is particularly true of young adults and middle-age folks whose busy lifestyles and philosophical outlooks leave them little time to bother with organizations that are stuck in the past rather than building a bright new future.The Church? Well, we didn’t fare so well. We continue to insist that we can repeat the things we used to do (maybe with a few minor adjustments, but certainly not with any changes that are significant or truly challenging) and expect to reap different results. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t work, and the Church not only continues to grow grayer and grayer, but more importantly it continues to be less and less relevant for more and more people under the age of 45. Our stubborn belief that we don’t need to significantly change has not only rooted us in the past, but, over time, it has created a significant age gap in our churches.And now we are at the payoff of this article. It is that age gap and the typical lifestyle of older adults that is contributing significantly to churches dying.Let me hash that out a little bit. Hopefully, it comes as no surprise that routines are very important for a high percentage of older adults. With aging can come a lot of unwanted change and the stress of deteriorating health. Also, you can become somewhat dependent on other people, which means you don’t always have control over how or when your needs are met. Routines help immensely with those issues. It’s not so unusual for seniors to begin to develop cognitive challenges, which of course, are easier to manage when your daily life is consistent and predictable.Now, here’s why all of this matters and how it is connected to churches dying: Do you know the single most effective way to get people to try a church out? An invitation from a friend. As a matter of fact, a Lifeway Research study found that ninety percent of new church members first attended because a member invited them.Let’s put the puzzle all together. Getting stuck in its dogmatic adherence to how things have always been while society moves forward created a significant age gap in the church. The predominate age group in the church is now older adults, ages 65 and above. Not only do a majority of folks in that age group prefer their days to be predictable and full of routine, it is safe to say that because of it they don’t tend to meet many new people.On top of it, most of the people they do know either already go to church or have decided over their lifetime that it just isn’t for them. Even if our older adults do find someone they can invite, the person is also likely to be an older adult, which isn’t going to help with the reality that “one-fourth of congregations will lose half their members in 20 years.”The Church is in a membership crisis more than most people are willing to admit. It’s not just that our numbers are dwindling. The problem is that we think that if we just put some effort into it, we have the tools and structure to turn it around. Frequently, this is even expressed as “if we just did (fill in the blank) like we used to, everything will be alright.” That is exactly and precisely wrong.We must recognize that we are now perfectly set up to not attract young adults and middle-aged folks. We are perfectly designed to get the results that we are getting. It’s going to take doing some things in radically new ways to turn the tides. We’ll have to embrace technology and social media more deeply than ever before. And, we will have to be intentional about breaking out of our routines. We will need to be deliberate about finding new ways to positively interact with younger folks. Nobody else can do it for us. There are no magical books or seminars that can make this easy.This is simply about the church (remember, the people are the church) breaking out of its safe routines and dogma, and deeply and lovingly engaging the community it is in.~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read online hereAbout the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Andy I read Bishop Spong's fine book Unbelievable; in one chapter, he talks about advances in science (such as the size of the universe) that have forced us to reconsider the tenets of our faith that were codified before those things were understood. I also read Neil Degrasse Tyson's most recent book: he says the universe is estimated to be 90 billion light-years across and contains 100 billion galaxies. My question: where is God in the universe? Is God bigger than the universe? How can God be both so big but small enough for us to have a chance of comprehension? A: By Toni Reynolds Dear Andy,Without pretending to know the precise answer to your question I’d like to consider a crucial element that helps me better understand this paradox you’ve focused on; that element being the subject-object paradigm that we are slowly transitioning out of.One of the key findings of quantum physics is that the mind is not separate from what it observes as its object. Quantum physics shows that the processes of our consciousness (what we use to know anything) are not separate from the world we see. It is partly showing us that every act of observation and knowing is an act of God creating. Human consciousness and what it interacts with are deeply entangled, constantly creating with one another. As such, we cannot define God as universal but then inquire about God as if God is an entity separate from us, or the process by which the inquiry arose. That’s where the confusion is brought in.The subject-object paradigm that existed when we thought we were separate beings, knowing of things as objects, is challenged because of these advances in science and quantum physics. It is indeed making more room to experience God beyond knowledge alone, making God more than an object to be known by the human subject. This is a liberating shift that will bring us to a fuller understanding of our intimate connection with God. However, the old paradigm is so deeply engrained that it will take us lots of practice and continued questions, like the one you posed, in order to work out the kinks and appreciate the paradox that God is both small enough to be felt within our beating hearts, and large enough to stretch to the outer edge of a universe we struggle to fully imagine. It makes God not a mere matter of comprehension but also of direct experience in the present moment and it frees us from assuming a type of power over Creation that we do not in fact have.These advances are showing us how logic and knowledge alone cannot grasp the fullness of God. These scientific advances in the understanding of our relationship to the universe are helping to heal us from a subconscious separation from God. This separation has caused us to think of ourselves as objects seeking God by our intellectual efforts, without surrendering to the magnificence and awe of what is here and now – of what is within and without all at once. The sciences are in some way bringing us back to the mystery of appreciating God, despite all the related knowledge and ideas we can gather. At the points where our minds seems to hit a limit and experience takes on a less logical yet deeply meaningful quality, God still exists. One may even say that the name “god” starts to hold less power over these experiential revelations, breaking us open to new names, symbols, and stories with which to better connect with the Divine.Andy, your question and readings on these things is putting you in touch with God in a deeply meaningful way. I hope you find deep nourishment as you continue to explore the elasticity of God-both within and far, far beyond yourself.All the best,~ Toni ReynoldsRead 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! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Miracles V: Did a Blind Man From Bethsaida Really Receive His Sight? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November 29, 2006 In the fourth installment of my fall series on the miracles of the New Testament, I suggested that the healing miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels might have originally been composed not to be tales of supernatural power at all. They served rather to demonstrate signs of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom attached to Jesus after his life had ended, when people began to understand him as “the one who would come,” “the expected one,” or “the promised messiah.” For evidence of this, I pointed to a story told only in Matthew and Luke where John the Baptist, in prison, sent messengers asking Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come or do we look to another?” Jesus told these messengers to tell John that all the signs the prophet Isaiah said would accompany the arrival of the Kingdom of God were present now in his life: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the mute sing. In that episode, these signs were not descriptions of events that actually happened; they represented, rather, language being used to interpret Jesus as messiah. I concluded that column by saying that if that were a true reading of this story, as I believe it is, then two conclusions would follow. First, for far too long, we have been reading the gospels as literal books, when that was not what their original authors intended. Second, clues should be present in these miracle stories themselves that would make their original meaning obvious. I promised to demonstrate what I meant by that by looking next at the various “sight to the blind” stories where the accuracy of this proposed reconstruction should be visible. So let me now begin to bring into focus the gospel stories in which sight is restored to one who was blind and see if there is a dramatically different way to view them.When all the relevant biblical narratives that portray Jesus as giving sight to the blind are isolated, it appears that there are six distinct stories in the gospels. Two are in Mark (8:22-26 and 10:46-52), two in Matthew (9:27-31 and 20:29-34), one in Luke (8:35-43) and one in John (9:1-41). Since we know, however, that both Matthew and Luke had Mark before them when they wrote, it is interesting to note that all of the “sight to the blind” stories in both gospels appear to be nothing more than variations of Mark’s second story. To complete this narrowing process, the single “sight to the blind” story in John appears to be based substantially on Mark’s first story. So, in reality the six stories can be reduced to only two.To be fair there are other generic references to the miraculous recovering of sight on the part of those who were blind in the gospels of Matthew (15:31 and 21:14, 15) and Luke (7:21), but they contain no narrative content. So we note that while the claim of restoring sight to the blind is regularly made for Jesus, a careful study of the gospels reveals that only the two narratives in Mark appear to be the source of this claim. Everything else is a variation on one of these two stories. The first thing we need to embrace is, therefore, that very little data actually stands behind this dramatic claim. In this column and the next one in this series, I will search within these two primal stories from Mark for illumining clues.I begin that task with a detailed scrutiny of the account of the healing of the blind man from Bethsaida. (Mark 8:22-26). It is filled with hidden messages and enigmatic words. An unnamed blind man from Bethsaida is brought to Jesus begging for his sight. Jesus takes the blind man by the hand and leads him out of the village of Bethsaida. Then, we are told, Jesus spat on the blind man’s eyes and “laid his hands upon him.” Jesus asked him: “Do you see anything?” The blind man responds by looking up and saying, “I see men but they look like trees walking.” Once more, Jesus lays his hands on this man’s eyes. This time we are told that it was only when there was an intense stare between Jesus and the blind man that his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly.” The story ends with Jesus sending the newly cured man directly home.What is the meaning of this strange tale? Why is the healing something that takes place in stages? What does “looking intently,” mean? Perhaps the clue to understanding this story is found in the next immediate episode in Mark’s text (8:27-33). Most people hear the Bible read in church only in brief segments with no attention paid to its context. Yet following this restoration of sight story is the account of Peter’s confession at a place called Caesarea Philippi, in which Jesus asks his disciples this question: “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples respond with a variety of possibilities. You are John the Baptist returned from the dead. You are Elijah. You are one of the prophets. Jesus then was portrayed as probing deeper into each disciple with his next question: “But who do you say that I am?” That was when Peter blurted out in his typical and aggressive style: “You are the Christ, the maschiach (the messiah).” It was a title that for the Jews was filled with a variety of images. Mark portrays Jesus as accepting that answer and imploring them not to tell anyone until the final events in his life occurred. One can hear in this narrative, echoes of previous discussions and debates about Jesus that surely go back to the oral period of Christian history, that is the time after his crucifixion in 30 C.E. on one side and the writing of the gospels some 40-70 years later on the other. There were two prongs to this debate. First, there was the conviction that Jesus was the messiah, for which they cited all the signs. On the other side there was the indisputable reality that Jesus had been killed, a fact that seemed to invalidate all messianic claims. For the Jews the messiah was to come in vindicating triumph. It was the destiny of the messiah to be victorious not to die. How can Jesus be the messiah and also be the crucified one? That was the debate. Peter has the first half right. You are the Christ, the messiah. I’m sure this Caesarea-Philippi story is written as if Peter expected some kind of emotional applause for his insight.Jesus, however, is portrayed not as rejecting that designation, but as seeking to expand the meaning of messiah until it embraced the things that had in fact already happened to him. So Jesus is portrayed as explaining to the disciples what kind of messiah he was called to be, lest they misunderstand the reality of his death. That is the moment in which Mark proceeds to put on Jesus” lips the first prediction of the passion (v.31). He will repeat this two more times (see Mark 9:30-32 and 10:33, 34) to make sure that his disciples knew that Jesus had understood his destiny. “The Son of Man,” said Jesus, using the popular New Testament image of messiah, drawn from the book of Daniel that had added many supernatural connotations to that word, “is not coming in triumph.” Rather, “he must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest and the scribes, be killed and after three days rise again.” In these words, Jesus was made both to challenge and to redefine the popular messianic expectations.Mark’s narrative implies that this redefinition was more than Peter could embrace. Clinging to the popular notion of the victorious messiah, Peter was said to take Jesus “and to rebuke him.” Jesus, however, turned and challenged Peter severely, calling him “Satan,” and saying, “You are not on the side of God but of men.”I believe the clue to understanding the juxtaposition of these two stories is that to both the blind man and to Peter sight comes through stages. The theme of Peter’s internal struggle to understand Jesus expressed at Caesarea Philippi will be repeated in the next chapter in Mark’s narrative of the transfiguration. There we are told that Peter had a vision of Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah on top of a mountain. In this mountain-top experience, Peter suggests the erection of three tabernacles, one for each of these participants. He is rebuked by the heavenly voice speaking out of the cloud, which states that Jesus is not to be regarded as one of three Jewish heroes, but as the one in whom both Moses and Elijah find their fulfillment.Surely we recognize that all “after the fact predictions of things to come” are never history. Mark’s gospel was written some 40 years after the crucifixion. Predicting the future is quite easy if you have already lived it, but are writing it as if it is still to come. The purpose of this narrative was to suggest once again that Peter came to his understanding of Jesus slowly like the blind man came to sight over a period of time. When we add to this interpretative process a little noticed fact from the Fourth Gospel informing us that Peter came from the town of Bethsaida, the pieces begin to click together. The story of the blind man from Bethsaida was originally a story, perhaps a parable, about Peter’s conversion.There is still one further connection. In this episode about the blind man from Bethsaida, Mark says that sight came only when Jesus stared at him intently. In Luke’s account of Peter’s denial of Jesus during the crucifixion, Jesus and Peter are pictured as staring intently at each other. Luke’s exact words are: “The Lord turned and looked at Peter.” That intense stare, which Mark says gave the blind man from Bethsaida his sight, is also portrayed later as giving Peter, another blind man from Bethsaida his sight. It took Peter some time to understand that messiah means giving yourself away even to those who will kill you. For if the nature of love is to be self-giving, then the nature of divine love must be totally self-giving.Our first conclusion then is that Mark’s story about a blind man receiving his sight is not a miracle story at all, but a description of the process of bringing Peter’s blindness about who Jesus was into his ability to see. This “healing story” is thus about developing eyes that can see beneath the surface to truth. It is not about sight but about insight or second sight. Suddenly, what we once called a miracle story begins to open us to a very different meaning.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | Events and Updates Unitarianism and Unitarian Christianity. – A Call to Assemble This is a public notice to all individuals who seek to live a faith toward the beliefs of Unitarianism and Unitarian Christianity. The call is herein made for all the faithful to assemble. This is not a call for clergy only, but for the layperson as well. If you feel it is time for our faith to become what God would have it be. And you are willing and able to participate in a meeting to be held at a central location in the United States, at a time and date to be established. Then please respond to this email address: UnitarianAssembly2019(a)yahoo.com This call for members of this Committee will be open from this date until midnight on February 17th, 2019. Click here for more information ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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1/17/19, Progressing Spirit: Toni Reynolds: Salvation and Responsibility; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6880360153 #yiv6880360153templateBody .yiv6880360153mcnTextContent, #yiv6880360153 #yiv6880360153templateBody .yiv6880360153mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6880360153 #yiv6880360153templateFooter .yiv6880360153mcnTextContent, #yiv6880360153 #yiv6880360153templateFooter .yiv6880360153mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } When we don’t need to know how to do anything for ourselves we can easily rely on the grunt work of others to move us closer to “happiness”. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Salvation and Responsibility Column by Toni Reynolds January 17, 2019When I first called myself a Christian I was in 7th grade. On my first visit to a small church I accepted Christ as my savior. I’m sure I had no idea what that meant, but it felt like the right thing to do in my 13 year old mind and heart. I spent the rest of middle school and high school so devoted to Jesus that I was at church almost as often as I was at school. I went to learn how to trust my new savior. I went to learn how to surrender successfully. I went to relinquish all sin, back sliding, laziness – parts of the genuine human experience I wanted to lay at the foot of the cross, walk away, and never have to pick them up again.Things seem a bit confusing in retrospect. I distinctly remember participating in a ritual of nailing things to a cross as a promise to give up the hindrances that kept me from accessing the love and power of Jesus in my life. I also distinctly remember having to confront those nailed up hindrances more than once after that ritual. As I confronted them away from the cross, time and again I felt like a failure. I felt irredeemable.How could I fail at having someone else do the heavy lifting for me?I moved to the Dominican Republic in 2016. I arrived there thinking I knew enough to get by day-to-day; enough Spanish, enough about international phone plans, enough about conversion rates, enough about how to do basic tasks. But then it came time to do laundry. The landlord showed me the washer and dryer when I first moved in. I noted the location and continued to settle in not thinking about the laundry machines until I needed clean clothes a few weeks later. Around that time, when I was running out of socks and nearing the need to wash a load of laundry, a colleague happened to ask me if I had washed my clothes yet. What a gift I didn’t know I received! I told her that I hadn’t done laundry yet. She told me I would need her help so I should let her know when I was ready to wash and she could help me. I must’ve made a face indicating that I was well versed in using a laundry machine because she rolled her eyes at me and said, “I’m taking you home right now to show you. Our machines aren’t like your machines.” I was annoyed. She was right.With Sabrina’s help I learned that I had to draw water from a certain bin of water, soak my clothes in a combo of detergent and solid soap, fill the washing machine with more water by hand, add soap to that and let it mix, add my clothes after they’d pre-soaked, let the machine run, find another bucket and fill it with fresh water, remove the clothes from the washer and soak them in clean water, refill the clean water when needed, then add them to what I thought was the dryer so that the excess water could be shaken from them, and then I could hang my clothes on the line to dry in the sun and air. A full day chore I actually knew close to nothing about, except that water and soap can clean clothes and the sun can dry them.What’s better is that a few weeks later I did my laundry all by myself. I was so proud, a little too proud. And I did something wrong with the water because my clothes ended up smelling dingy. So dingy and awful that Yuma, another colleague, asked me why I stunk. I told her I had no idea and she began to inquire about my laundering process. She realized I didn’t know what I was doing and decided she needed to show me how to properly wash my clothes…two more times. I had to be taught three times total how to wash my laundry. Where to draw the water from, how to fill up that tank again, which soap to use at which point in the process, which water could be reused for another load.Years later as I consider what it means to be free and responsible I wonder about this idea of having a savior. Despite being at least a world away from the beliefs I held in high school, I’m becoming aware of how the idea of a savior has the potential to push me towards laziness and complacency. I wonder if I truly want someone to do all of the heavy and not so heavy spiritual work for me. I wonder if it’s healthy to think that someone else can and should do my spiritual work on my behalf while I sit back and wait for the bliss without washing any of my own dirty laundry. I wonder what danger lies under the surface of using someone else’s spilled blood as the bleach that will clean my soul and make me feel good enough to sleep at night, despite the ways I may have acted against others, Creation, and myself.Delores Williams is a Womanist Theologian who expanded Christian theology to consider the lived realities of black women in the United States. In her seminal work, Sisters in the Wilderness, Williams highlights the danger of operating on a substitutionary theology-one that requires someone else to suffer so that I can be saved. In her example, Williams uses the surrogate role of Hagar in her relationship to Sarah to further explain what’s at stake when we rely on scapegoating dynamics.I love many things about Williams’s offering to us. It is a classic theological exposition that continues to challenge us to think about whose backs we step on in order to climb closer to freedom and righteousness. When we don’t need to know how to do anything for ourselves we can easily rely on the grunt work of others to move us closer to “happiness”. The only thing we must know how to do is search the Internet for someone who knows how to do the thing that we need done.What does our faith have to say to that? How is our culture contributing to an idea of surrogacy that makes us more human than the people doing our work for us?The things I nailed to the cross when I was 13 are things I wanted someone to fix for me. But if someone had only told me that the nailed imperfections were like the stink that stuck to my clothes after I washed them without Sabrina’s help, I would’ve carried much less shame and had much more compassion for others on their own journey. I only needed to be taught how to handle them better. Some of the things nailed up had to be shown to other teachers so that I could be guided to new perspectives and methods on how to deal with the stinky stuff. It took me all of these years to learn that if the crucified Jesus has any power to change us it is because that symbol points to the vortex of decision-making. A place where the power of choice can be harnessed and used by us mere mortals to inch ever closer to the balance and harmony we long for.I appreciate Jesus mostly because of his teaching pedagogy. I want to take seriously what he taught because I am not convinced that simply using his blood to excuse my shortcomings makes me a better person to be in relationship with. There’s work I have to do that only I can do. Spiritual teachers like Jesus can help me to do them, but I don’t get to use him as a surrogate while I misbehave. If Jesus is crucified and raised every three days while I wake up daily and refuse to take responsibility for my actions, for what reason has a savior truly died?~ Toni Reynolds Click here to read online and to share your thoughtsAbout 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. | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Nicolaas How and why did the word 'holy' get in front of the word 'bible'? I ask this because in my church the Bible is given immense authority with the word 'holy' and is then used by our church leaders to tell is us what to do and how to be saved. Would Progressive Christianity want to remove this word 'holy' away from these writings so that our hierarchical church structure can no longer rest on its traditional doctrines and practices? A: By Kevin G. Thew-Forrester, Ph.D. Dear Nicolaas,The words, holy bible, are simply a translation from the Latin, sacra scriptura, which literally means sacred (or holy) writings. For many, these writings are considered holy because people believe a god “out there” dictated them or inspired the authors (and for most of the books we have no idea who the authors are – for we simply have copies of copies of copies) such that they wrote exactly what god prompted them to write. In sum, the writings are viewed as “holy” because god is taken as the author, not human beings. When this dualistic paradigm guides religious authorities they can then tell you “what to do and how to be saved.” The result is that the word “holy” becomes a rationalization used by religious authorities to terminate discussion, prohibit questioning, all with the supposition that a biblical answer is at hand that has originated directly from a god who dictated the answer.I find the word “holy” thus understood and used to be misleading and unhelpful. A Progressive Christian response recognizes that these texts have their original power because of their capacity to speak meaningfully to the spiritual journeys of individuals and communities across the ages. As such, they have the potential to function as texts for prayer and liturgy. But – and this is critically important – it is the human community that makes the claim that the various books of the bible have the capacity to inspire based upon their actual impact in peoples’ lives – do they help us to become more whole, more free, more loving? It would be better to say that among the books of the Bible are writings, some of which have the capacity to inspire us and some do not.The plumb line for any text, within or outside the Bible, is this: is a particular text a Wisdom text? A Wisdom text has the capacity to foster the soul’s growth or unfolding, helping her to realize that she is an utterly unique expression of Being that is present as boundless love. I suggest you check out A New New Testament: A Bible for the Twenty-first Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts, Hal Taussig. It can help you see the Bible in a whole new light. ~ Kevin G. Thew-Forrester, Ph.D. Click here to read and share onlineAbout the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. Visit Kevin’s Blog: Essential Living: For The Soul’s Journey | | | | | | | | This Rabbi On That Rabbi A modern Portland, Oregon rabbi explains Jesus’s messages in a 6-Part Video Series. View this exclusive video content below. Part 4 - The Bible The Bible What is it? And why does it matter? What is the Bible? It is not just one thing. The simplest definition I have for the Bible is this: the Bible is a collection of written documents by a group of people from two different faith traditions in the ancient Near East to explain their interactions and understanding of the divine. To understand the Bible, we must see that it is not one document written at one time but rather it is a continued recording of two groups of people over hundreds and hundreds of years.. Let me clarify this evolution of the Bible by going into it in a bit more detail about an idea that I presented earlier – about our perception of God changing throughout the Bible. Much of the idea of God evolving throughout the Bible is based on the work of Erich Fromm in a book called In You Shall Be As Gods. The people of the ancient Near East lived in times of patriarchies, kings, and oral traditions. It makes sense, then, that their notion of who God was would also surpass their notion of who was ruling their world at the time.. This God, recorded at the start of Genesis, is a super-sized, larger-than-life= version of an earthbound tyrant, much like the kings with whom the people were familiar. As their society changed, the way they presented their views of God also changed. And, as the Bible was the “recorder” of their theology, we can see these changes revealed on the pages of the Bible. Society went from a world where jealous totalitarian rulers did anything they wanted to in a world where rules became more rigid than the rulers of the past might have been. When we get to the times of Abraham, the idea of God becomes God as a constitutional monarch. God makes a pact with Abraham saying “if you do this, then I’ll do that.” .....Genesis 17:7 .....I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your .....descendants after you throughout their generations for an .....everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants .....after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, .....the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an .....everlasting possession; and I will be their God… After the idea of God as a constitutional monarch, in the time of Moses at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, God stopped being corporeal and became the nameless deity of history. God refers to himself as the God who had connections with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel. A note from Rabbi Brian I breathe great relief knowing that God’s character changes. It means that my understanding of God needn’t be monolithic or static either. Take the bible literally True/Truth I do not take the Bible literally. But I take it seriously. To take it literally would mean that I believe that every word, as it is written, was spoken by God. I cannot do that. But I can and do take it seriously. To take the Bible seriously means to examine it in its time and for the culture in which it was written. I want to offer up a very handy distinction that can help in our understanding of the Bible. That distinction I would like to make is revealed in the two words: true and truth. True is if it actually happened. It is a fact of history. ; Truth is the moral. It is the actual essence of things. I do not believe that most of the biblical stories are true stories. But I sure do believe that they are truth stories. It doesn’t matter to me if the Red Sea parted or if Noah had an ark. I don’t care if Jonah was swallowed by a whale or if that’s not necessarily factually so. To me, the great meaning of these stories has nothing to do with whether they’re historically accurate or not. Whether Jonah slept or didn’t sleep for three nights in the proverbial halibut hotel does not take away from the moral of the story – that it is human nature to run away from the things that we don’t want to do. I don’t believe this historically happened. I don’t believe Jonah was swallowed by a great fish and brought to the bottom of the sea-world after not doing what he knew he had to do. This is a truth story. Not a true story. This is a story about humanity, about me, about the troubles we get into when we don’t do what we should do and about how it will bring us down to the very bottom of our existence. It’s a truth story, not a true story. And if we look at the miracles in the Bible as truth stories, what we learn from these stories will be liberative for us. In this important way the Bible can be a very liberating force in our lives. If we read the Bible in this way we will probably fight less with what we read in the Bible. Moreover, seeking the “truth” of the stories can allow us to have meaningful conversations with people who might read the stories to be true stories rather than truth ones. The truth aspect of the story offers a place of connection between myself and those who read the words literally. Bible The Bible is a sacred book. The Bible represents our highest values and what we deem to be holy. The Bible is a localized document. It always relates to the particular people and place from which those values are derived. You have to know that this book is important as we capitalize the word itself as though it were a person – moreover, often the definite article “the” preceding it is also capitalized, as in, “In The Bible, we find...” This book is important in and to our culture. That is what I meant when I just said that it is localized. We have people swear on the Bible not because we think they believe every word in it, but it is our societal way of saying this is of great importance to us. In a sense, we are asking the person on the witness stand to say: “Do you agree? Do you agree that what is to follow is important? Do you agree that what you are doing is important and that it matters?” And by so swearing, the person with his or her hand on the Bible says, “Yes, I agree.” Books These are my favorite books on the Bible. John Dominic Crossan, Who is Jesus? This Catholic priest wrote this very-easy-to-read, question-and-answer-style book that leads to trying to understand Jesus in a historical context. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity Rodney Stark is a sociologist, and he approaches his book from that perspective. He was focused on determining how the obscure marginal Jesus movement became the dominant force in the western world in a few centuries. which became the subtitle of the book. Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospel: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes Both of these books, one from more of an academic point of view and one from more of a liturgical point of view, help to show that the gospel writers were Jews writing to Jews in a Jewish context. These works blew my mind, and they’re why I’m doing this series discovery with you. With the exception of Luke, the gospel writers wrote in a Jewish style – like all of the Mishnah and Midrash that I studied, because it was all contemporaneous literature. The stories are deep with metaphorical language and in the context of the time. And, when you understand it with the Jewish understanding, as Spong and Borg help us do, you can see again the point of Jesus. Bruce Chilton, Rabbi Jesus: an Intimate Biography Professor Chilton goes through the Jesus story to provide the historical context that helps us picture Jesus as a revolutionary, continually on the move, outside of the law, to preach his rebellion against Rome. Reading in, taking out Eisegesis and exegesis Eisegesis is looking at one’s own point of view and reading that into the text. Exegesis means taking what is in a text and finding out what it means. I’m a firm believer that there really isn’t such a thing as exegesis. I believe that we all come at a text with our own point of view and bring that point of view to the text. Reading into the Genesis story a notion of original sin is eisegesis. Reading into the Genesis story that the devil was the one tempting Adam and Eve is eisegesis. These elements are not written into the text. They are ideas that are brought into the text. I have had many discussions with people who told me that the serpent in the garden was the devil, but I know that the concept of an external tempter does not enter into the scriptures until the book of Job at the earliest. There was a phrase I heard in rabbinical school: “a donkey reading the Bible would find all the passages about donkeys in the Bible.” In Bruce Chilton’s book, on page 172, he explains that disparate groups all point to the same book to prove their own certainty. ........the apocalyptic fervor of the Branch Davidians; the mystical .....disciplines of Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen; .....the insistence upon full immersion in water and in Spirit .....among the Baptists; the charismatic healing of revivalists, .....whether under tents or on television; the political activism .....of Liberation theology; the ethics of Albert Schweitzer and .....the compassion of Mother Teresa; the compulsive socializing .....over meals, whether in the formal liturgy of the Mass or in .....covered-dish suppers in churches all over the world. There’s a difference between eisegesis (bringing our views into the text) and exegesis (finding out the “true” meaning of the words). Most eisegesists (people who do eisegesis) claim that they’re doing exegesis, that this is what the text says. I will be as honest as I can be and tell you that this is exactly what I am doing, as well. And I firmly believe that when you take the context of the times into account, the text shows God being eternal, open, and non-particularistic. Of course, the other folk are equally certain. And being certain only means that you are certain, not that you are right. One more book I want to bring one other book to your attention. Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer, My Fun Theology Workbook: How to find out what (the) God (of your understanding) wants from you. I wrote it based on my work doing spiritual direction with people. I think of it as spiritual direction in convenient book form. In it, I give exercises and things to think about. I don’t tell you what it is that God wants from you, instead, I give you free range to find out for yourself. -- Rabbi Brian is the C.E.O. of Religion-Outside-The-Box, an internet-based, non-denominational congregation nourishing spiritual hunger. Find out more about newsletter, podcasts, videos, and other good ROTB.org is doing for thousands every week. This Rabbi on That Rabbi is a co-production of Religion-Outside-The-Box and Progressing Spirit. | | | | | | | | 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! | | | | | | | | Announcements Westar Spring 2019 National Meeting March 20-23, 2019 Public Lectures Panel Discussions Interviews Seminars .. and more! Visit Westar Spring 2019 National Meeting for more information ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Sunny Walker's bookpub post
by Timothy Wegner 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

Apparently Sunny Walker has a problem with her email, so I have turned on her moderation flag (which means I have to approve any posts). This will prevent any more bookpub or similar posts. On another list management topic, I have learned that there's a problem with folks with various Apple emails to post to the list. Be aware that you can also post to the dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net, which should work from an Apple email. You should still use dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net as the "official" address if you don't have an Apple email. List emails to you will still come from that email. Hope everyone is well! Tim

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Sunny Walker has invited you to join BookBub!
by Sunny Walker 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

Sunny Walker granted you exclusive access to free & discounted ebooks The perfect book is waiting for you, at an unbeatable price. Accept Invitation! ( https://www.bookbub.com/signup_from_invite?email=85ebbe3885e287442abe93b407… ) Sunny Walker On BookBub since April 2018 You were invited as part of a referral sweepstakes. BookBub · 1 Broadway 14th Floor · Cambridge, MA 02142 If you would like to stop receiving invitations to join BookBub, click here. ( https://www.bookbub.com/muted_email?email_address=dialogue%40lists.wedgebla… )

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Bill Norton's Obiturary
by Timothy Wegner 11 Jan '19

11 Jan '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Therese Norton <therese.norton01(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Jan 9, 2019, 11:56 Subject: In Memory of William Norton To: theresenorton01(a)gmail.com <Therese.norton01(a)gmail.com> Dear family and friends, Here is the link to my father's obituary/life sketch. Please feel free to share it. https://jernsfuneralchapel.net/tribute/details/1492/William-Norton/obituary… I also wish to thank you for all the love and support you have shown over these last few weeks/months. It means a lot to me. Keep in touch. -- Therese ------ Therese Norton 1102 Franklin St. Bellingham, WA 98225 206-409-3011

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Greg Harris
by Ellie Stock 10 Jan '19

10 Jan '19

Dear ICA Friends, After receiving a Christmas Card from us, Evan Harris, son of former ICA colleague in Canada, Greg Harris, called to say that Greg's cancer, which had been in remission, returned, and he died October 23, 2018. We worked with Greg in 1977-78 during the "golding" of Canada. Carleton and he did circuits together out of Montreal, oftentimes on snowy roads in rural areas. Greg was a pedal-to-the-metal driver back then--and, one time, slip slide and away--the car spun off the road into a meadow. Fortunately, they were able to get the car back on the road and continued their journey, Carleton now driving. We give thanks for the gift of Greg's life, for his passion and work for justice. Evan asked that we share this information with those who knew him. He is Geg's only child and is presntly working while studying business management. His contact info:27 Rainsford RoadToronto, OntarioCanada M4L 3N5 Ellie Stockelliestock(a)aol.com

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1/11/19, Progressing Spirit: Kevin Forrester: Liturgy As Corporate Spiritual Practice Of Embodiment: Part II; spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 10 Jan '19

10 Jan '19

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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7316013581 #yiv7316013581templateBody .yiv7316013581mcnTextContent, #yiv7316013581 #yiv7316013581templateBody .yiv7316013581mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7316013581 #yiv7316013581templateFooter .yiv7316013581mcnTextContent, #yiv7316013581 #yiv7316013581templateFooter .yiv7316013581mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } A Wisdom text has the capacity to foster the soul’s growth or unfolding. | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Liturgy As Corporate Spiritual Practice Of Embodiment: Part II Column by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. January 10, 2019I ended my last column with these words: With the universal human desire to be a human being of Being as our starting place, the question I raised in “Terrifying and Terrible Texts” remains the plumb line: is a particular formal liturgical text a Wisdom text (be it a eucharistic prayer, a collect, or a hymn)? A Wisdom text has the capacity to foster the soul’s growth or unfolding, helping her to realize that she is an utterly unique expression of Being that is present as boundless love.A Wisdom Liturgical Year Informed and Transformed by BeingLet us now see how this reformed vision of liturgy as spiritual practice of embodiment can transform the Christian liturgical year of corporate worship. In my next column I’ll complete this exploration with a look at some examples of eucharistic prayers of presence from liturgical texts I have written.Liturgy needs to be reformed by being informed and transformed by the human desire to become an embodiment of Being here and now. As we look at the conventional church liturgical year, which begins with Advent and closes with the Season after Pentecost, not only is nostalgia problematic. The seasons and their prayers orient the soul to an external Savior, rather than an experiential discovery of the healing presence of ever-present Being. When Being becomes the leaven transforming the liturgical year, we can discover new, meaningful, dimensions, in the unfolding pattern of gathering for spiritual practice. Here is one possibility for reimagining the Christian liturgical year, which builds upon the basic human experience of realizing that Being is the very leaven of human experience calling forth our unfoldment into living Christs. - Birthing of New Life At the heart of the liturgical triptych of Advent/Christmas/Epiphany is the mystery of birthing new life. The spiritual path is integrally a journey in and through birth and death and birth. John’s gospel, as well as that of Thomas, captures this exquisitely. The birthing process invites us to discover the value of vulnerability and the centrality of trust. We are swallowed by life and then emerge once again, as the story of Jonah depicts so well. - Awake, O Sleeper And yet we fall asleep, spending most of our lives operating unconsciously. The spiritual path requires that we wake-up from our mechanical repetitiveness; wake-up from our survival driven panic; wake-up from our fear clutched hearts and practice living lives with open hearts, open minds, and open bodies. Ash Wednesday is a reminder that our body, not our being, is from dust and returns to dust. There is no curse here, no judgment. Rather, here is an opportunity to acknowledge that embodied life is short beyond belief; time is precious. The present moment is a gift inviting us to become aware beings. - Transfiguration/Transformation In Eastern Christianity, transfiguration is a mystery central to spiritual practice. To become embodiments of Being means to become translucent, no longer cut-off from our unconscious and no longer dulled to the passion of our deepest longings. Lent is not about self-mortification or denial; it is a time to enter the desert, which means the willingness to reexplore those attachments that derail our soul’s growth, driving us through life without awareness of our true motivations. We feel and explore our soul’s hunger, our egoic drivenness, and our personality’s fear of being alone. The desert is our soul facing itself without distraction discovering that her true nature is Being, with the inherent capacity to live life with authentic joy. - Reign of Wisdom Rather than being a quaint party with vegetation, Palm Sunday confronts us with the truth that the Christ movement is a counter-festival, which means it is a liturgy that draws us to critique the dominant hierarchy in society and church, and bids us to live lives in which the Wisdom Way embodied in the life of Rabbi Jesus captures our hearts. We rediscover the courage of being the holy fool who serves. - Sent to Serve Here we reconceive the conventional “Great Three Days.” Spiritual practice as a life of service is restored to the integral heart of the Christian spiritual path. But this is a sense of service that flows freely from boundless love; the human heart becomes free from being driven by guilt or shame or requirement. Instead of washing and anointing feet, which bears little meaning in this culture, we can wash and anoint hands for service, as we roll up our sleeves and get to work in a broken world. - Companionship & Cross: Mary Magdalene and Rabbi Jesus Fidelity and friendship are discovered and celebrated anew as the core dimensions of the story of the Cross. Good Friday is not a tale of abandonment, but of the capacity of human beings to remain faithful companions in face of tremendous loss. The spiritual path is not easy and, in the end, requires all that we are. Mary and the other women embody the virtue of constancy with Jesus up to, into, and thru his death. - Light Renews our Life Being itself is the light that is luminescent in darkness as well as daylight; it is Being, manifested so resplendent in Rabbi Jesus and his companions, that renews our spiritual lives. Even more, in Easter we glimpse the deep truth that non-Being, or emptiness, is the actually timeless source of Being. The emptiness of death is the womb of life. This means that not even death can terminate the unfolding mystery of Being that is you and me. - Love Through and Through Spiritual practice becomes our way, our rhythm, of life. Realization is asked to mature into actualization, which means practicing embodiment becomes our very way of living in this world. We awake not to flee this world, but to become full participants without being held captive. This is what it means to be quickened in the Spirit, and to be in this beautiful yet broken world, but not of it. Boundless Love is never captive. Authentic human embodiment is characterized by Love through and Through. The Season after Pentecost is thus a discovery of Boundless Love as the fabric of existence permeating all experience; which is why the emptiness of the grave is not terminalIn my next column I will offer some explicit examples of such prayers of presence from liturgical texts I have written that follow a Wisdom-based liturgical year. Although my focus will be eucharistic texts, the goal is to create collects, eucharistic prayers, and hymns that embody and express with clarity and simplicity and beauty, this fundamental truth: we are to realize ourselves as embodiments of Being.~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.Click here to read online and to share your thoughts About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including “I Have Called You Friends“, “Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms“, and “My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You” and “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“. Visit Kevin’s Blog: Essential Living: For The Soul’s Journey | | | | | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Charles Pelagius’ view of Original Sin and his conflict with Augustine might be something one of our gifted writers would write about. The ninth Article of the Anglican 39 Articles don’t look very favorably on him and his followers. A: By Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Dear Charles, Thank you for your question. I too have felt that Pelagius (born 354) has gotten something of a bad rap over the centuries. Like most so-called heretics much of the dust-up between him and Jerome and Augustine was deeply enmeshed in the politics of the time. Saint Augustine was very much a son of the Roman Empire which was in its last gasp of decadence in the early fifth century. Much pessimism and negativism pervaded the Mediterranean mindset at that period. Pelagius on the other hand, derived from the Gallic or Celtic lands either Briton or Ireland) outside the empire. His worldview was essentially earth-based and more like the tribal world that Jesus derived from in Palestine than it was from an Empire soon to be baptized Christian (so-called). He fiercely opposed Manicheism and the dualisms it was based on.Augustine was imbued with dualisms thanks to his immersions in Manicheism and in Neo-Platonism—it was he who said “man but not woman is made in the image and likeness of God” and “spirit is whatever is not matter.” He separated nature from grace and developed the ideology of original sin that identified original sin with our sexuality. Pelagius would have none of that and he emphasized human choice over human inheritance. Reinhold Niebuhr has remarked that Augustinian-based Christianity over emphasized the grace of pardon at the expense of the grace of power and Biblical scholar Krister Stendahl says that Augustine’s preoccupation with an “Am I saved?” concern is neurotic and not Biblical at all. Meister Eckhart, himself deeply imbued with a Celtic consciousness, heals the nature/grace rift this way. “Nature is grace” he writes.Unfortunately, the Western Church has followed Augustine’s dualistic consciousness far more than it has the Celtic awareness—but remember that Augustine’s worldview that triumphed prevailed in a context of building a Christian empire. A nature-based consciousness does not lend itself well to empire-building; dualism does. Not only Pelagius and Meister Eckhart but also John Scotus Eriugena (who translated many of the Greek Orthodox theologians into Latin) and Hildegard of Bingen (raised in a Celtic monastery along the Rhine), Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich and Nicolas of Cusa also followed the Cosmic Christ in opposition to the anthropocentric (and narcissistic) preoccupations of Augustine. The Eastern Church rejected Augustine and rehabilitated Pelagius after his condemnation in the West.Pelagius visited Rome, Sicily, Carthage and Jerusalem where he met Jerome and the two clashed deeply. Jerome, who violently opposed the Jovinianists, accused Pelagius of being of that school of thought—Jovinian claimed that marriage was as holy a state as celibacy (marriage was not declared a sacrament until the twelfth century and then it was a very controversial opinion which, by the way, Hildegard endorsed). Jerome also was scandalized that Pelagius had many friendships with “mere women” and complained about the “Amazons who attach themselves” to Pelagius. (Celtic women can be strong women and clearly neither Jerome nor Augustine were at home with such.)Like Eckhart and Blake, Pelagius talks of redemption as reminding—Eckhart called Christ “the great Reminder.” Sin is primarily our forgetting our way and our origins as images of God. “If you wish to measure the goodness of human nature, look to its author,” Pelagius wrote in a letter. With this awareness of our blessed origins (original blessing?), comes responsibility however for we can all fall into forgetfulness which can even build as a nefarious habit. So said Pelagius.* ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Click here to read and share online About the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 71 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Recent books include The Lotus & The Rose: Conversations on Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Christianity with Lama Tsomo; Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God...Including the God Without a Name; new paperback version of Stations of the Cosmic Christ with Bishop Marc Andrus. A Special Eckhart@Erfurt workshop in June, 2019. ************************ * I highly recommend the following article by Mary Aileen Schmiel, “The Finest Music in the World: Exploring Celtic Spiritual Legacies,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co., 1981), 164-192. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Miracles IV - Interpreting the Healing Miracles Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on November 8, 2006 When we begin to dissect the miracle stories of the gospels, it is easy to notice some fascinating connections. The nature miracles, for example, are clearly the retelling or reworking of earlier biblical stories about Moses or Elijah. One can see the similarities between Moses asking God to feed the multitude in the wilderness with heavenly bread and Jesus feeding the multitude in the wilderness with five ever-expanding loaves. The story of Jesus walking on water has its ultimate root in the story of Moses splitting the Red Sea. That feat was then celebrated in the psalms and prophets in such words as God is able to make “a pathway in the deep” and God’s “footprints can be seen on the water.” When those words are then applied to Jesus in the gospels they represent a God claim far more than they are a story of the supernatural. When we come, however, to the narratives in the gospels that portray the power of Jesus to bring healing to the people, the problems get more intense and the debate becomes more emotional. Miraculous healings by Jesus have been associated with his divine nature for so long that many feel that to question the literal accuracy of these stories is to attack the very essence of the Jesus story, which portrays him as a God-presence. If God can do miraculous healings, the argument goes, could not Jesus, as part of who God is, do the same? It is an interesting thesis and demands a careful and considered approach to the definition of both God and Jesus. I begin this discussion by noting that we have no record of Jesus doing supernatural acts of healing until the gospel writing tradition begins around 70 C.E. That means that we know nothing of this miraculous tradition until at least 40 years, or two full generations, after the earthly life of Jesus had come to an end. There are some biblical scholars who date what is called the Q material, which appears in Matthew and Luke, and the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas as earlier than any of the written gospels. Whether those claims can be sustained or not is still hotly debated in New Testament circles and I personally tend to doubt them, but the fact remains that neither of these two sources contains a description of a miracle story or a healing episode. There are also no accounts of Jesus doing miracles in the writing of Paul (50-64 C.E.). Certainly no one can suggest that this fact diminishes Paul’s view of the divine Christ, since Paul has one of the highest Christologies in the entire New Testament. So the door is pushed ajar just a fraction to the possibility that the narration of the supernatural healing miracles might have a purpose other than that of being descriptions of events that actually occurred. I ask you to hold these possibilities in your minds for just a moment while we proceed to uncover some biblical data and to assess some biblical facts that might put new light on this subject. There is a fascinating narrative told us only in Matthew and Luke, which may offer us a clue as to how miracle stories came into the Christian tradition. These two gospel writers take a story from Mark describing how John the Baptist was imprisoned and executed and expand it. In their expansion John in prison sends a messenger to Jesus asking the messianic question: “Are you the one who is to come or must we look for another?” It is a question that could not have arisen until the debate about whether or not Jesus was the anticipated messiah began to be engaged, which surely occurred well after his death. The way Jesus was made to respond to John’s question is also noteworthy. He did not say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ He said, rather, “go back and tell John what you see and hear, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the mute sing.” No miraculous tales were included in the narrative, but Jesus was portrayed as claiming that these signs have gathered around him. What was that answer all about? What did it mean? What was Jesus being portrayed as trying to convey? Only those who are deeply familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures would have any clue as to the context out of which Jesus was speaking. He was referring to the 35th chapter of Isaiah, written in the late years of the 8th century B.C.E. The historical situation was that the Northern Kingdom of Israel had fallen to the Assyrians. Its citizens had been carried off into captivity, where they became the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel,” disappearing into the DNA of the Middle East. The Southern Kingdom of Judah would, in that same critical moment of history, accept vassalage to the Assyrians and pay tribute in exchange for tiny vestiges of freedom. It was a bleak time in Jewish history and that bleakness gave rise to intensified messianic hopes. The Jews began to dream about the coming of the Kingdom of God. In time tales about the one who would usher in that kingdom would be added to that dream. This figure was called by a variety of names: ‘the anointed one’ (maschiach in Hebrew, messiah in English), ‘Son of Man,’ the ‘new Moses,’ the ‘new Elijah’ and even the ‘Son of God.’ When Isaiah wrote he went on to depict the signs that would accompany the dawning of this Kingdom of God. The pain of the world, he said, would be transformed, wholeness would replace brokenness and perfection would overcome imperfection. What Isaiah was really doing was to create a new image of the Garden of Eden into which all people would be invited to enter. He described this vision in these words: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall bloom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the Glory of the Lord, and the majesty of our God” (Isa. 35:1-2). How would people know that the Kingdom of God had broken into human history? Isaiah answered that question with what he called the signs of the Kingdom: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy, and a highway shall be there and it shall be called the Holy Way. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Is. 35: 5, 6, 8a, 10, 11). Jesus in his answer to John the Baptist was portrayed as making the claim that in his life Isaiah’s signs of this in-breaking Kingdom were present. Go tell John what you see: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the mute sing. When the Kingdom comes, the gospel writers were saying, all of those things that represent the reign of God must become visible. So, when people ascribed messianic claims to Jesus, they also had to attribute messianic acts to his presence. That is how and why, I believe, the tradition developed in which healing miracles were attributed to Jesus. It was not that these things actually happened so much as it was, that this was the way his followers interpreted who Jesus was, and how they described the power that they experienced in his person. The next step required of those of us who want to become proper interpreters of the gospels is to expand our definition of these aforementioned infirmities. What kind of blindness, for example, was it that was to be overcome? Was it physical blindness or spiritual blindness? Did it have to do with sight, insight or second sight? Was it more about those who, despite the fact that they had eyes, could not see who Jesus was? Was it about those who, though they had ears, were in fact deaf to his message and reality? Was it about those who were physically crippled or spiritually crippled? Was it about those who could not speak because they had not yet entered the experience for which these words were originally formulated? When we analyze the healing episodes in the gospels, we find that all of them speak to the wholeness, the fullness of human life. In Mark’s Gospel there are two episodes about sight being restored, two episodes about hearing being restored, three episodes in which the physically lame and the mentally impaired are cured, and two episodes in which the tongues of the mute are loosened so that they can speak of the new reality. These are the data that cause me to suggest that these stories were not literal events that happened but interpretive narratives added to the memory of Jesus in those years between his death and the writing of the gospel accounts. They were designed to interpret both his life and his death in the light of their dawning understanding of him as “the first fruits” of the Kingdom. He had become the life in whom they first saw what the Kingdom of God was all about. If that reconstruction has substance, it would account for why miracle stories are not attached to the memory of Jesus in earlier writings. It would also suggest that even healing miracles were originally designed to be interpretive symbols, not descriptions of literal events. If such was the original intent of the gospel’s healing stories, one thing becomes immediately obvious. That is, that the literal minds of the western Gentile Christians clearly distorted these interpretive symbols because they did not understand the Hebrew texts that lay underneath these stories. It also suggests that if these stories were never intended to describe events that actually happened, that fact ought to be obvious in the stories themselves. Next I will begin to focus on representative miracle stories in the gospels to see how well these ideas play when the texts themselves are analyzed. I will look in particular at the “sight to the blind” stories in the gospels to see if we can find in them interpretive, non-literal hints of their original meaning. I believe we can and, when we do, a whole new level of understanding the Bible in general and the gospels in particular opens before our eyes. So stay tuned.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | 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! | | | | | | | | Announcements MLK Day of Service For the past 24 years, America has honored Dr. King through service on the federal holiday dedicated to him, led by the Corporation for National and Community Service(CNCS). Whether you have previously participated in this day of service or this is your first time, it is pertinent to remember his words, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” Click here for more information .... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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