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Consequences of resource extration in Peru, N. Dakota...
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 23 Sep '16

23 Sep '16

Dear ICA/OE Colleagues, In concert with what is happening in N. Dakota... Below is an example of the work the Joining Hands Partnership Program with which I am working in Peru is doing there and also trying to connect the dots with communities in other countries and the US to address environmental and other issues related to resource extraction. For years we have worked with residents of La Oroya, Peru, an Andean community contaminated by lead and other heavy metals caused by the US-owned smelter, based in St Louis and NYC. Many of the materials (lead, gold, silver, copper, etc.) from this smelter are used by US consumers, but at the expense of the health and well-being of local communities and their environments. The proposed Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement contains an Investment State Chapter that is in most free trade agreements that gives corporations greater rights than communities/states/nations and often frees them from liability, and allows them to sue communities, states and nations when their actions are challenged and profits (past/present/future) are threatened. Specifically, the information below is about a violent incident related to mining in Cajamarca, Peru. The Joining Hands Peru Partnership and other networks, such as Red Muqui have been monitoring and supporting Maxima Acuna as she and her family try to protect the land that is rightfully and legally theirs against the aggression of the Yanacocha Mine, owned by Newmont, a U.S. company. Further below is a recent press release about the incident. What we do to the web, we do to ourselves...water is life...Local people shall rise again, to build the earth, the common earth...our common home... Ellie Stock elliestock(a)aol.com Please see the attached press release from Red Muqui, a member organization of our Joining Hands Peru network Red Uniendo Manos Peru, regarding the attack by the security forces of the Yanacocha mining project on Máxima Acuña and her family. Newmont has a 51.35% investment in Yanacocha. Please take action by following the hyperlinked petition below! Tell Newmont: drop your lawsuit against Máxima! 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Máxima Acuña de Chaupe has been hospitalized after being attacked, allegedly by security forces hired by Minera Yanacocha, a subsidiary of Denver-based Newmont Mining, according to information provided by the Chaupe family. The attack took place on Máxima’s property in northern Peru that the mining company has been trying to obtain for its Conga gold mine project. Máxima is concerned that the company’s security forces will continue to circle her home and intimidate her. And there is no indication that Newmont is backing off from its legal battle against her. This harassment needs to stop! Watch the Goldman Environmental Prize video on Máxima’s workhere Watch the trailer for a great documentary that looks at the conflict around the Yanacocha project. It´s calledThe Daughter of the Lake. LATEST ATTACK ON MAXIMA ACUÑA PROVES HOW LAW No. 30230 ANDREGULATORY PACKAGES FACILITATE THE VIOLATION OF RIGHTS The MUQUI NETWORK, addresses itself to national andinternational audiences to manifest the following: 1. We regret that once again, security personnel of theYanacocha mining project has committed an act of violence against Maxima Acuñaand her husband Jaime Chaupe on September 18th. In a public statement thecompany admits having entered the lands of the Chaupe Acuña family in order toremove "some crops located in an area of 200 square meters." 2. In a video released by the Yanacocha project itself, agroup of about twenty members of the security force can be seen - wearingsafety shields and carrying weapons - crossing the perimeter fence placed thereby the mining company itself, in order to define its lands with respect to theproperty of the Chaupe Acuña family. 3. In the recording there appears a disproportionate andlarger than necessary security force of the mining company against the effortsof Maxima Acuña and her husband who, being alone, try to defend the land that theyconsider to be theirs. As a result the peasant couple ended up with severeinjuries, which upon evaluation have been determined to be multi-contusions. Onthe basis of these facts the National Ombudsman Office has filed a complaintwith the Public Prosecutor. 4. We urge the Public Prosecutor to investigate in depth andwith due speed and transparency what happened, and charge those who areresponsible. 5. We join the invocation of the Ombudsman Office, anddemand that the Peruvian State respect its international obligations by complyingwith the injunction issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights(CIDH) in favor of Maxima Acuña. The State must provide the necessary securityto her and her family, in order to prevent the mining project Yanacocha and thecompany that provides its security services from continuing to exercise violence against them, affectingtheir rights to personal integrity and health. 6. Let it be know to the public that the high-handed actionexerted by the mining company and the company that provides security servicesis favored by Law No. 30230, a standard that is part of the regulatory packagesapproved between 2013-2015. This law, by way of its Articles 65, 66 and 67, amendedArticle 920 of the Civil Code regarding the extrajudicial defense ofpossession, which the mining company Yanacocha mentions in its statement tosupport its violent action. 7. RED MUQUI and GRUFIDES, at that time, denounced thedanger of this policy by indicating that it enables "fast and immediaterecovery of possession", without recourse to the judicial authority, and allowingthe use of force, or exercising "vigilante justice". This is what hashappened in this case. Maxima Acuña, despite having documents proving thelegality of her possession to the land and even more, being legally justified,Yanacocha mining exercised the use of force, without any judicial mandate to sustainit. 8. Finally, the act of violence suffered by Maxima Acuña andher husband through the application of "possessory defense" is justone example of the multiple violations of rights that the regulatory packages(approved and promulgated between 2013 and 2015) can cause. Therefore we demandthat the legislature repeal Laws No. 30230, No. 30327 and Supreme Decree No.001-2015-EM, among other regulations, that we consider prejudicial tofundamental rights, and only causing more social conflict with theirapplication. Lima, September 19, 2016

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9/22/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXVI – Thesis #11, Life After Death
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 22 Sep '16

22 Sep '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Charting a New Reformation Part XXXVI – Thesis #11, Life After Death “The traditional understanding of life after death in Western Christianity was created on the premise of human uniqueness. Human beings were understood to be a special creation, made in the image of God, and endowed with an eternal soul. That perspective has not only been challenged, but destroyed by modern scholarship. Charles Darwin showed us that all life emerged from the first single cell. The discovery of DNA in the 1960’s revealed the deep connection among all living things. Evolutionary biology now traces our history not just to the great apes, but also to the cabbages and even to the plankton of the sea. Astrophysics has introduced us to the vastness of the universe and even to the possibility that intelligent life might inhabit places within it other than the planet earth. These discoveries have served to destroy the original basis for belief in life after death and to have reduced that idea to the realm of pious hope. Can modern men and women then continue to talk about “eternal life” with any degree of intellectual integrity? Can Christianity survive without it? I have no use for life after death as the tool of behavior control. In many religious people that is its only purpose. I do not believe that parents can effectively raise their children on the basis of promising them a reward for “good” behavior and punishment for “bad” behavior. If this pattern represents a style of parenting that is all but universally dismissed by experts in child development, then I wonder why Christian people have not banished this same mentality from the life of the Christian Church. Heaven and hell are, quite frankly, badly dated, unbelievable concepts, which need to be dismissed at once from our minds and from the liturgical life of the church. Only the most irrelevant of our ecclesiastical thinkers appear not to see this and so they alone cling to these archaic ideas. Obvious changes in the meaning we attach to various words in our secular society make this shift very clear. Look at what has happened to the word “heaven.” Since Gene Autry in 1928 sang: “You’re the only star in my blue heaven” it has become little more than a synonym for the sky. When the word “heaven” is turned into the adjective, “heavenly,” it is used to describe everything from a new dress to good sex! Understanding this, Anglican theologian Don Cupitt could and did write a book entitled: Above Us Only Sky! The word “hell” has fared no better. It has become a mild oath with little meaning. One can say in the summer: “It is as hot as hell today” and one can say in the winter: “It is as cold as hell today” and mean the same thing! The word ‘hell’ no longer has any content, We also trace this ever-changing meaning when we look at the way the early and medieval church constructed the realms that in their minds made up the afterlife. Those structures were constantly being adapted to meet human need. There was nothing unchanging or eternal about them. The major concern in the church with regard to life after death was not its reality, but the imperative necessity that the leaders of the church felt to control human behavior on this earth. Originally, there were only two areas in the geography of life after death. By far the most graphic area was hell in which sinners were eternally punished and where the fires burned eternally. Then brimstone was added to heighten the fear and to motivate virtue. To this realm called “hell” were assigned not just the wicked, but also the non-believers, the heretics, the infidels and the unbaptized. The other realm, called “heaven,” was constructed as a place of bliss and reward created and reserved for the virtuous, the saved, those who acknowledged “Jesus Christ as savior” and who were thus baptized. Please note that the church thus added “belief control” to “behavior control.” One must not think outside the boxes of orthodoxy if one wanted to be “saved.” This bicameral system of heaven and hell, however, did not fit reality. Virtuous and godly lives had existed long before the time of Jesus so people in this period of history could not possibly have believed in Jesus or have been baptized, which was the standard for the “saved.” In the early church this ecclesiastical discussion centered on great thinkers of the past like Plato and Aristotle, who were indeed being read to shape the theology of the established church quite intentionally, once Christianity had received official recognition and had begun to move toward becoming the dominant religion of the Western world. Could Plato and Aristotle be assigned to hell appropriately and still be quoted regularly by the church fathers? It was an intolerable situation and so the church leaders set about to remedy this anomaly. This changing pattern was a clear indicator that the truth of life after death was not the product of divine revelation, but of human adaptations. Soon the church proceeded to address this crisis by adding a third alternative to the structures of the afterlife, supplementing the original two destinations of heaven and hell. This third place was called “Limbo” and it was presented as the eternal destinations of “noble pagans.” Limbo was not a place of suffering, but it was also not a place where the beatific vision could ever be achieved. Limbo served primarily to accommodate the human conscience that could no longer assign to hell the noble pagans, who would have had no chance to have encountered Jesus. In the 20th century, a person like Mahatma Gandhi, not Plato or Aristotle, became the primary illustration of why “Limbo” was so essential to our rational consciousness. It protected the “justice” of God. It was not long after that before the moral outrage of assigning unbaptized babies to hell created another crisis in our belief in the afterlife. If heaven was only for the baptized Christians, then in an era of widespread infant mortality, what was the fate of a baby who died before baptism? What about stillborn infants? What about a miscarriage or even an aborted fetus? What kind of God was it who would punish innocent infants for either the accidents of their births or for the negligence of their parents? This debate raged in all parts of the Christian Church movement until finally a fourth structure was added to the geography of the afterlife. It was called “Limbo for unbaptized children.” Now the leaders of the Christian Church could say that an unbaptized child would not be eternally punished, but would find his or her eternal dwelling place in this “Limbo for unbaptized children.” In this new realm, there was no eternal punishment for evil, once again, saving God’s sense of being fair and even merciful. At the same time, there was no eternal bliss and no hope of heaven was held out to these unbaptized little ones. This had the effect of saving Christian authority. Eternal life could now be had without either punishment or reward, but with fairness! The next debate about the reality of the afterlife arose when people began to see “degrees of evil” in those who came to the moment of judgment. Were not some lives more overtly evil than others? Could Genghis Khan and Adolph Hitler be put in the same category as those who ate meat on Friday, cursed from time to time, violated their marriage vows or got a divorce? The pressure arising from the sense of the relativity of evil found expression when yet another new room was added to the geography of the afterlife. This new room was called “purgatory.” Purgatory was an enormous step in a new direction for the church to take. With the advent of purgatory, the punishment of hell, but not the bliss of heaven, became time related. Even those, who had been the most evil of the world, were now not doomed to suffer through all eternity, but only to serve a longer sentence in purgatory. Those whose sins were either moderate or merely expressions of carelessness, would spend less time in purgatory. In the last analysis, however, everyone, good and evil alike, would finally gain the promise of heaven. Purgatory was the first step taken by the church in the process of moving toward the healing hope of universalism. The result of all of these changes was, however, that the afterlife began to look like a house built by a committee! New rooms were being added to take care of every newly perceived human need. The afterlife was clearly a human construction reflecting adaptations in the ever-changing human understanding of God. The power of these images in the task of controlling human behavior was immense. Next these concepts entered our literature and framed our consciousness. One thinks of such works as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Christianity was clearly now in the behavior control business! If these powerful controls were ever relativized, it was assumed that moral anarchy was inevitable. Is behavior control really the purpose of the Christian faith? One of the slogans of the American Humanist Association is “Good without a God!” Does anyone really believe that goodness is dependent on a belief in God? Christian history surely reveals that the Christians of the world can be evil even with a God. To separate reward and punishment, good and evil from any connection with life after death becomes, therefore, a necessary first step that must be accomplished before we can begin to examine anew the possibility of life after death. Heaven and hell, as aspects of the old reward and punishment, behavior control system will surely have to be discarded. For many people that theme is so dominant a part of the afterlife that once it is dismissed there is nothing left. Does the possibility of life after death disappear when heaven and hell, reward and punishment disappear? Is that what life and death are ultimately about? I do not think so. To face this anomaly is, however, a necessary and essential first step. We take it and we move a step deeper into the subject. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Glen Bennett from Canada, via the Internet, writes: Question: Teach me to pray. I have read Why Christianity Must Change or Die and it has been a great help to me as I could never get my head around the Bible. For the last 30 years I have followed faithfully eight of the Ten Commandments. When I become angry I sometimes swear and, like your book explains, I think the Fourth Commandment has never been followed. Answer: Dear Glen, Thank you for your letter Let me go quickly to your request. Teach me to pray! The misunderstanding and difficulty people have with prayer most of the time is because they have not tried to define God outside of the theistic, authoritarian patterns of the past. If God is a supernatural, external power, prayer is an attempt to get God’s power to work for us. It is an attempt to impose my will onto God, to force God, a supernatural being, to do my will. If that is what prayer means to you, you will spend your life explaining why it doesn’t work. Why does tragedy occur? Why does suffering abound? Why is the world not perfect? If one can escape theism sufficiently to begin to experience God as the “Source of life,” empowering me to live, the “Source of love,” freeing me to love, and the “Ground of Being,” giving me the courage to be all that I can be, then prayer begins to make sense. Prayer then is the activity that calls us to build a world in which life can be enhanced for everyone, love can be increased for everyone and the courage to be all that each person can be in the infinite variety of our humanity can be a possibility for everyone. Until this shift in the definition of our God experience occurs, trying to answer the question of how to pray will be an endless “merry-go-round.” Prayer, you see, is not a request for something, but the exercise required to open us to all that God is and all that God means. In the first book that I wrote, Honest Prayer, (still available through St. Johann Press, Haworth, New Jersey), I sowed the seeds for understanding prayer this way. This book was written in 1972. I have grown far beyond that book today, but that was where the journey out of the prayer patterns of my youth began, so I still treasure it. Hope this helps. John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements Honest Prayer In this 2-Part Video Series, Jeff Procter-Murphy of Living the Questions Interviews John Shelby Spong who shares an early experience in ministry that helped redefine his understanding of the practice of prayer. Click Here to Watch the Interviews

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N. Dakota/ANWR
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

Hi folks, I'm just wondering if and how anyone is connecting in any way with the Native American demonstrations against the pipeline in N. Dakota or efforts to stop drilling and pipelines in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (pristine land and home of the Gwich'in and birthing grounds of the caribou). Ellie Stock elliestock(a)aol.com

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Re: [Dialogue] N. Dakota/ANWR
by Doug & Pat Druckenmiller via Dialogue 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

Doug and I know many of the people involved. We have also posted a lot on Facebook. Many of my former students and colleagues from the high school and Sitting Bull College are involved. Winter is coming and local folks will be OK, even camped. But we're worried about people who aren't prepared for a North Dakota winter. After all, if the Mandan hadn't taken them in, Lewis and Clark and their party would have died. 40 below zero on the thermometer is tough. Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: 09/21/2016 8:47 PM (GMT-06:00) To: jfknutson(a)aol.com, dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net, jackcgilles(a)gmail.com Cc: oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: Re: [Dialogue] N. Dakota/ANWR Thanks, Joan. Ellie Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -----Original Message----- From: Joan <jfknutson(a)aol.com> To: elliestock <elliestock(a)aol.com>; dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; jackcgilles <jackcgilles(a)gmail.com> Cc: oe <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Wed, Sep 21, 2016 08:32 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] N. Dakota/ANWR <div id="AOLMsgPart_2_1e7110c5-c0c0-4a53-8b29-452974a5bfca"> <div class="aolReplacedBody"><font color="black" size="2" face="arial">If you can get on Dianne's Facebook page you will find the whole story. Joan Knutson <div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message----- From: Ellie Stock via Dialogue <<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> To: jackcgilles <<a href="mailto:jackcgilles@gmail.com">jackcgilles(a)gmail.com</a>>; dialogue <<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> Cc: oe <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> Sent: Wed, Sep 21, 2016 6:08 pm Subject: Re: [Dialogue] N. Dakota/ANWR <div id="aolmail_AOLMsgPart_1.2_bc33c8ca-e7fd-40b4-9ed5-b605ce1e6d3e"> <div class="aolmail_aolReplacedBody"> Jack, Are they on the listserve? Do you think they would be willing to share their experiences? There may be others who would be interested. Ellie <a target="_blank" href="mailto:elliestock@aol.com">elliestock(a)aol.com</a> Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -----Original Message----- From: Jack Gilles <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:jackcgilles@gmail.com">jackcgilles(a)gmail.com</a>> To: Ellie Stock <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:elliestock@aol.com">elliestock(a)aol.com</a>>; Frank Cookingham via Dialogue <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> Cc: Tracy Longacre via OE <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> Sent: Wed, Sep 21, 2016 07:47 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] N. Dakota/ANWR <div id="aolmail_AOLMsgPart_2_2934bd6e-8f4d-431c-b1a0-05a4da271d13"> <div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="aolmail_aolReplacedBody">Salvatore Caruso and Dianne Greenwald were there for two weeks. Profound experience. <div> <div><blockquote> <div>On Sep 21, 2016, at 19:23, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <<a target="_blank" href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote: <br class="aolmail_aolmail_Apple-interchange-newline"> <font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <div>Hi folks, I'm just wondering if and how anyone is connecting in any way with the Native American demonstrations against the pipeline in N. Dakota or efforts to stop drilling and pipelines in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (pristine land and home of the Gwich'in and birthing grounds of the caribou). Ellie Stock <a target="_blank" href="mailto:elliestock@aol.com">elliestock(a)aol.com</a> </font>_______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list <a target="_blank" href="mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net</a> </div> </blockquote></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list <a target="_blank" href="mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net</a> </div> </font></div> </div> _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Bishop Spong, Update on stroke
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 20 Sep '16

20 Sep '16

Dear friends, As many of you know, Jack Spong had a stroke last week while traveling to speak. We are pleased to inform you that at this time Jack and his wife Christine are back in New Jersey and Jack is at a rehab facility. He continues to make a good recovery. At a minimum, the expectation is for almost 90% physical and 95%+ cognitive recovery. We thank you for holding him in your thoughts and all the positive energy you have sent. It was very heartwarming to Jack and Christine and all of us here to see the outpouring of love and kind thoughts. We will continue to publish Bishop Spong's Weekly Essay Series for the next couple of weeks and then will re-run some of his popular, previously published essays until he is ready to resume his writings. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Click here to like Bishop Spong on Facebook and watch for more updates. Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 253-507-8678. Copyright © 2016 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW #80 Gig Harbor, WA 98335 Add us to your address book If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account. This email was sent to elliestock(a)aol.com why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences ProgressiveChristianity.org · 4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW · #80 · Gig Harbor, WA 98335 · USA

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Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer
by James Wiegel via Dialogue 19 Sep '16

19 Sep '16

This is great fun!! figuring out who is listening, responding, who gets a particular response!! I am not sure I have seen all the emails back and forth, and Jack sent the link below, but now I need his permission to see whatever he sent. I DID listen to the Ruby Sales interview that McCabe's sent (around calling a plumber). She takes this conversation into this century with comments about the role of "god talk" and old hymns and all as part of the voices in our heads that sound out and give guidance as we live our lives / land airplanes / respond to emails. Anyone else have a chance to listen? I was caught by her comments on intergenerational abandonment (-- Grits, Green Beans memoir; pictures of the generational gathering in Indiana this summer -- ) and also her comment about whether I see other white people as being worthy of redemption (not sure I got that right -- coffee is kicking in, I need to go eat breakfast) Jim Wiegel “If you want an adventure . . . what a time to be alive!”. Joanna Macy 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353623-363-3277jfwiegel(a)yahoo.comwww.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming ToP training opportunities in Arizona More info on: ToP® Facilitation Methods ToP® Strategic Planning: Mastering the Technology of Participation Register on line / see the ToP National ScheduleAICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses The AZ ToP® Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, of every month, 1-4 pm, at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 From: "McCabe, Diann A via OE" <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: Jack Gilles <jackcgilles(a)gmail.com>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; Richard <dick_alton(a)hotmail.com> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 4:44 AM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer #yiv6598821571 P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}Terry (McCabe) and I listened with deep attention to Ruby Sales yesterday on the radio broadcast, On Being. She has much to contribute to this conversation as well:http://www.onbeing.org/program/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt/8931 All the best, Diann McCabe, San Marcos, TX From: OE [oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net] on behalf of Jack Gilles via OE [oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net] Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2016 9:50 PM To: Richard; Tracy Longacre via OE Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer Dear Colleagues, Below is what I sent to the list serve, but I found out that the attached file was too big to be included. So I made it into a Google.doc. Here is the link. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwPOc7ZRHtHzYXJyTGs5ZGdpYkE/view Jack I am a bit surprised by this string of emails on what we meant by the Two Story Universe being gone, and prayer. Here is a gift of the Archives of one of JWM’s talk to a group of churchmen at a conference on Christ in the City. Just listen and you will here all you need to know about why we said the two story universe is gone and what has taken it’s place. Enjoy! Jack On Sep 18, 2016, at 21:27, Richard via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Terry, great witness even though old...maybe we should all take our best witness and re-send it out. Although I am working on a new one called, " the magical garden"Dick Richard H.T. Alton 166 N. Humphrey Ave, Apt, 1N Oak Park, IL 60302 T:1.773.344.7172 richard.alton(a)gmail.com Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back Babe Ruth From: OE <oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of Terry Bergdall via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:50 PM To: Order Ecumenical Community Subject: [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer The movie "Sully" opened in movie theaters around the US last week. I was interested to see it because of an "earthrise" witness that I wrote on prayer seven years ago. I was trying to illustrate the RS-1 practice of grounding religious language in life experience. Given this dialogue initiated by Susan in response to Bishop Spong, I thought I'd re-post it again here. See below: PRAYER AND CAPTAIN SULLY, 9 April 2009 I just returned home from a trip to New York. As is typical when flying from LaGuardia, we had a spectacular view of the city’s skyscrapers. This time my fascination was greater than usual as I found myself looking for the spot where, in January, a plane like mine crash-landed into the Hudson River. You probably heard about Captain Sully and his plane’s encounter with a flock of geese, how its engines stopped shortly after take-off, his quick review of options, and his management of a crash from which every one of the 150+ passengers survived. As I looked down on the same river, I was reminded of an interview I heard shortly after this occurred. Someone asked Captain Sully “Did you pray while this was happening?” “No,” he said, “but I imagine there were some in the back taking care of it for me while I did the flying.” I may be overly presumptuous but both the question and answer seem to be predicated on a popular image of prayer whereby one’s self is put in the fore seeking favors from a supernatural entity and, in this case, pleading for an escape from a life-threatening danger. I have no doubt that everyone on that plane was experiencing a prayerful moment, but genuine prayer is something far different from this counterfeit perception. Prayer means acknowledging and bowing my head to the sheer awesomeness of a prevailing mystery that is totally beyond myself. It is the mystery that I first recognized in the questions of my childhood -- why I am here? why must I die? what should I do? what is the purpose of life? I encounter unmitigated mystery precisely because these questions are ultimately unanswered. Genuine prayer allows us to grapple with the silence rather than fill the void. Prayer is standing before that reality (the name that we cannot know according to the ancient Israelites, i.e., “God”) and framing everyday actions, as well as responses to extreme circumstances, in a life-affirming comprehensive context. It is never an escape. “I don’t pray to change God,” C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “I pray to change myself.” Captain Sully’s actions make me think that he was in a very profound state of prayer as he landed that plane. He was intensely focused on acknowledging the real situation while bringing all of his experience and knowledge to bear, including extraordinary resources to remain calm in a moment of extreme crisis. Given popular perceptions, I can also appreciate his unwillingness to call it prayer. Which raises questions for me. Most of the time, topics of an overt religious nature, like prayer, never even come up in my daily encounters. When they do, it seems that about half of the people I meet are more-or-less content with the shallowness of popular religion while the other considers it to be totally irrelevant. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification and there is a lot of grey in between but it highlights a quandary. How do I authentically engage everyone, religious and secular alike, to celebrate and act upon both the possibilities of life and its overwhelming limits? It is even more complex when different religious traditions are thrown into the mix. No matter how much I work on resolving this, there is no simple answer. It is in wrestling with life’s questions that we make our prayers. Though he’d probably be surprised to hear it, I’m grateful today for Captain Sully calling me to mine. Amen. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Keeping on with the conversation, a bit of archival material . . . The short courses on Prayer from the RS-1 course.
by James Wiegel via Dialogue 17 Sep '16

17 Sep '16

Thanks for the conversation and sharing, a good thread. Certainly the wording in the prayer song was articulating individual experience ("When I see my life ever is torn . . ."). These short courses touch upon a community dimension as well. I like I.B, 1 and 2. THE SEVEN INDIRECT COURSES OFRS-1: Prayer, Theology, Study, Group,Worship, Art, Meal PRAYER METHODOLOGY I. RETOOLING‑ Prayer is one aspect Of the Christian life that needs to be re‑thought. A. Collapse: Prayer is a problem for churchmen in the 20th century. 1. World view ‑ the two-story world view inwhich the metaphors for prayer were born is gone. 2. Baalism ‑ to ask God to give you goodthings or to relate to your own subjectivity is not prayer. B. Recovery: The collapse gives the possibility for re‑discoveringthe meaning of prayer. 1. Witness ‑to offer a prayer is at minimum a witness to who you are. 2. Worship ‑to declare who you are is to disclose what God you stand before as the meaning of your life. II. CONTEXT ‑ As withany activity the question of prayer is a question of designating the particularand universal context in which it occurs. A. Situation. To pray authentically is to respond in somesituation. 1. Particular ‑ responses to the deeps oflife always occur in a particular situation. 2. Embracing ‑ prayer is to be totally situation in the sense of affirming yourparticipation in it. B. Community: Depth responses to situations are always made on the basis ofsome community in history; there is no such thing as private prayer. 1. Saints ‑ in the Christian community evenprayer off by oneself is in the presence of the Churchmen known and unknown ofthe past and future. 2. Worship ‑ it is also always an extensionof and re-call to the corporate office of the gathered community. III. DYNAMICS ‑ The nature of what takes place in prayer has todo with certain essential interior characteristics. A. Basic: Prayer is a methodology in selfhood without which humans would not behuman. 1. Attentionality ‑ it is basically a way of being present to the actualoccurrences as they are universally experienced in life. 2. Intentionality ‑‑ it is the exercise of the decision a human being makesas a final stance toward some given particular. B. Depth ‑ Prayer has to do with man’sspirit relationships rather than his surface existence. 1. Responsibility ‑ to pray is to berequired to take genuine responsibility for an object of concern. 2. Promisorial ‑ it is also to pick up theparticulars that are being faced and claiming the promise of their fulfillmentas they are. IV. TYPES ‑ In the tradition of the Christian community thereare several basic types of prayer. A. Petitionary ‑ The first requirement isto dare to assume the presumptuous posture toward life of projecting oneself asa person of faith. 1. Church ‑ we presume to pray forourselves as the body of Christ in all times and in all places. 2. Trust ‑ we therefore rely upon the Wordthat we are received people as we are who can always be expected to be foundstanding as accepted persons. B. Intercessory ‑ boldly advance our proclamation of thedecision to take responsibility for all of life. 1. World ‑ we pray for every structure thatholds life in being announcing that we are to be held accountable for theirjustices and injustices. 2. Service ‑ we pray as well for every one notfound in the orders of life whether by their own deed or by the willfulexclusion by others, thereby saying we will care for their lives. Jim Wiegel “If you want an adventure . . . what a time to be alive!”. Joanna Macy 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353623-363-3277jfwiegel(a)yahoo.comwww.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming ToP training opportunities in Arizona More info on: ToP® Facilitation Methods ToP® Strategic Planning: Mastering the Technology of Participation Register on line / see the ToP National ScheduleAICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses The AZ ToP® Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, of every month, 1-4 pm, at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 From: John C via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2(a)gmail.com>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 11:55 AM Subject: [Oe List ...] Thank you, Terry! Super. Thank you, Terry! Thank you, Sully! John Cock From: Terry Bergdall via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Reply-To: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2(a)gmail.com>, Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 2:50 PM To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Subject: [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer The movie "Sully" opened in movie theaters around the US last week. I was interested to see it because of an "earthrise" witness that I wrote on prayer seven years ago. I was trying to illustrate the RS-1 practice of grounding religious language in life experience. Given this dialogue initiated by Susan in response to Bishop Spong, I thought I'd re-post it again here. See below: PRAYER AND CAPTAIN SULLY, 9 April 2009 I just returned home from a trip to New York. As is typical when flying from LaGuardia, we had a spectacular view of the city’s skyscrapers. This time my fascination was greater than usual as I found myself looking for the spot where, in January, a plane like mine crash-landed into the Hudson River. You probably heard about Captain Sully and his plane’s encounter with a flock of geese, how its engines stopped shortly after take-off, his quick review of options, and his management of a crash from which every one of the 150+ passengers survived. As I looked down on the same river, I was reminded of an interview I heard shortly after this occurred. Someone asked Captain Sully “Did you pray while this was happening?” “No,” he said, “but I imagine there were some in the back taking care of it for me while I did the flying.” I may be overly presumptuous but both the question and answer seem to be predicated on a popular image of prayer whereby one’s self is put in the fore seeking favors from a supernatural entity and, in this case, pleading for an escape from a life-threatening danger. I have no doubt that everyone on that plane was experiencing a prayerful moment, but genuine prayer is something far different from this counterfeit perception. Prayer means acknowledging and bowing my head to the sheer awesomeness of a prevailing mystery that is totally beyond myself. It is the mystery that I first recognized in the questions of my childhood -- why I am here? why must I die? what should I do? what is the purpose of life? I encounter unmitigated mystery precisely because these questions are ultimately unanswered. Genuine prayer allows us to grapple with the silence rather than fill the void. Prayer is standing before that reality (the name that we cannot know according to the ancient Israelites, i.e., “God”) and framing everyday actions, as well as responses to extreme circumstances, in a life-affirming comprehensive context. It is never an escape. “I don’t pray to change God,” C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “I pray to change myself.” Captain Sully’s actions make me think that he was in a very profound state of prayer as he landed that plane. He was intensely focused on acknowledging the real situation while bringing all of his experience and knowledge to bear, including extraordinary resources to remain calm in a moment of extreme crisis. Given popular perceptions, I can also appreciate his unwillingness to call it prayer. Which raises questions for me. Most of the time, topics of an overt religious nature, like prayer, never even come up in my daily encounters. When they do, it seems that about half of the people I meet are more-or-less content with the shallowness of popular religion while the other considers it to be totally irrelevant. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification and there is a lot of grey in between but it highlights a quandary. How do I authentically engage everyone, religious and secular alike, to celebrate and act upon both the possibilities of life and its overwhelming limits? It is even more complex when different religious traditions are thrown into the mix. No matter how much I work on resolving this, there is no simple answer. It is in wrestling with life’s questions that we make our prayers. Though he’d probably be surprised to hear it, I’m grateful today for Captain Sully calling me to mine. Amen. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV – Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 17 Sep '16

17 Sep '16

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Before prayer can have meaning, it must be built on an honest sharing of life. Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last week, did that for me. Before prayer can be discussed in the age in which we live, it must be drained of its presumed manipulative magic. It must find expression in the reality of who we are, not in the details of what we do. These were the insights that my third story gave to me as I walked through what was probably the darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989. The learning curve was steep; the depth of despair was real. I invite you now to enter that time period with me and to walk through that experience as I did. This narrative is true, personal and painful. I have spoken verbally of it before. I have not written about it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.</p> <p>Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. She had never been fond of doctors and so had postponed seeing one until she felt her symptoms had become critical. She had discovered a lump in her breast much earlier and had decided to tell no one for a very long time. It grew very slowly causing her to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be benign. It remained her secret. That December as the holidays came into focus, however, the tumor erupted externally and became a draining sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and got her as quickly as I could to a doctor. After an examination and later a biopsy, we heard the verdict. She had a stage four malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and massive chemotherapy would have to follow the surgery. No guarantees were offered even then. In fact we were told that about two years of life might be all that we could reasonably expect. We sank into the shock of that diagnosis.</p> <p>At that time I was an active and fairly high-profile public figure as the bishop of Newark. We had been engaged in great controversies over the full acceptance in both church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified in this fight and my name was widely recognized from press and television coverage. People in public life learn quickly that they really do not, perhaps cannot, have a private life. Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my wife’s diagnosis and her prognosis spread until it seemed to me as if the whole world knew. From that day on, I never visited a congregation in my diocese for confirmation that prayers were not offered publicly for my wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New Jersey informed us that they were praying for us – some were Episcopal, some were Roman Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary that presumably my wife and I were facing. I did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I was rather appreciative of their efforts, as was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and loving. In their own way, the people were telling us that they really cared for us and, in whatever way they could, they wanted to help. They were willing in this way to stand with us, to share in our pain and in our struggle. One never rejects love that is so freely offered, even when the form in which it comes might not be one’s particular style. So Joan and I were carried by this wave of love from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.</p> <p>The months passed and then the years began to mount. When we passed the two-year prediction date, and things were still going positively, I noticed that these prayer groups began to take credit for my wife’s longevity. In their letters to me, it almost sounded as if they believed that they had engaged the powers of evil in some profound contest that pitted them on God’s side, holding back God’s enemies. Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing back the advance of this demonic sickness. They were winning the battle and they felt good about their success. Once again, my response was not to debate the theological implications of their understanding of prayer, but simply to appreciate the level of caring that they were offering. It was, at least in its intention, sustaining. I could not help, however, in the darkness of each night to wonder about the implications of their understanding of prayer</p> <p>“Suppose,” I thought to myself during a particularly sleepless time, “that a member of the City of Newark’s sanitation department had a wife with cancer.” At that time, Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near the top of the list of America’s poorest per capita cities. I tried to envision just who it was who might occupy the bottom tier of Newark’s socio-economic status system. My mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on the garbage collector working for Newark’s sanitation department. So I focused on him.</p> <p>In this long dark meditation, I wondered how many prayer groups would have added her name to their lists. How much public notice would her illness have achieved? If this couple went to church, perhaps that community might have been aware of their struggle, but would services have been interrupted with passionate petitions for healing? Would the gates of heaven have been stormed by massive number of prayers? Would God, I then wondered, let this man’s wife die more quickly than my wife? My high public profile and social prominence alone caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife than for his. Would those prayers be a factor, I wondered, in either healing or longevity? Does God operate on the basis of human status? If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I would immediately become an atheist! I could not possibly believe in such a deity. This capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to me. The cumulative power of many people praying existed in the case of my wife only because I was a fairly well known public figure. Is status a factor in what is thought of as the healing power of God? When John Paul II lingered on his death bed for so long, the whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that a factor in his long lingering death? When hurricanes barrel down on a population center like New Orleans, the cries of millions are lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the cumulative power of many prayers affect the course of a life, change the direction of a hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and the well-known. If that is true then God clearly cares more for the rich and famous than God does for the poor, the forgotten and the unknown. Such a conclusion becomes theologically violent, absurd and even hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot be that. My wife lived for six and a half years from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her death in August of 1988. In retrospect, I treasure that extension of time, but I did not fully understand then the gift that I was given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we see only “through a glass darkly.”</p> <p>So I put these stories with their varied and distinctive insights together. Then I seek to draw conclusions about what prayer means in the 21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a petition from the weak to the all-powerful one to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Prayer does not bend God’s will to a new conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.</p> <p>These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon. They arose out of the childhood of our humanity. Today a new question emerges, which we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the human act of last resort? Does praying reflect anything more than the fact that all else has failed? Why do we say so frequently to people, “You will be in my prayers,” when we never stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the face of life’s pain that draws us to pretend that we actually possess the power to make a difference, creating nothing more than a comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?</p> <p>Is my experience, which tells me that loving, caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can prayer be defined as something other than this pious activity? Does it have any claim on reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a preparation for a time of engaging in a holy activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It is love that is life-giving. Having the courage to be all that I can be is the place where God and life come together for me. If that is so, is not living, loving and being the essence of prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul enjoined us to “pray without ceasing” did he mean to engage the activity of praying unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see all of life as a prayer calling the world to enter that place where life, love and being reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not coming to the place where my “I” meets another’s “Thou” and in that moment God is present?</p> <p>I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my awareness of the holy in which my life seems to be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more whole, to be set free to share my life more deeply with others, to be enabled to love beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers that divide me from those I once avoided lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the presence of God, the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being. Can that understanding of prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p> </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:</span> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question:</h4> <p>I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have taught many adult classes and would, in that process, include many of Bart Ehrman’s offerings in the Great Courses series. Currently, my class has six sessions of his course: After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had planned to present these this coming fall. I received a call from our Director of Care Minister, who is the scheduler for adult classes. She asked me to cancel this class because some persons, (unknown to me), but who are not members of the class, had complained about it. Earlier our senior pastor had mentioned to me that I should be “sensitive” to others’ feelings about this class and presumably, about Bart Ehrman,</p> <p>My question: What is your professional opinion about the credibility and qualifications of Professor Bart Ehrman and what is your opinion about his scholarship as evidenced in his books and in his Great Courses classes?</p> <p> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Cliff,</p> <p>I know Bart Ehrman and believe him to be a competent scholar of the first order. His expertise is in the period of early Christian history more than it is in scripture studies per se. I have listened to all of his classes in the Great Courses series and have appreciated his insights, controversial as some of them well may be. Dr. Ehrman challenges the popular, but not substantiated, assumption that there ever was such a thing as “Orthodox Christianity. He demonstrates, rather powerfully, that there were originally “many Christianities” long before what came to be called traditional orthodoxy emerged with power as “The One True Faith.”</p> <p>I suspect that what you are now hearing is not an objection to Bart Ehrman’s scholarship, but rather the fact that in one of his recent books, he stated that he was no longer a believer. He now calls himself an atheist. He has had an interesting history, starting in one of the most conservative and fundamentalist parts of the Christian Church. In my opinion, he is still processing his life experience. He has much to teach us all. No one has to agree with either his current faith position or with any of his conclusions; his scholarship is still impressive. In the book in which he said that he was no longer a believer, I have an endorsement on the back cover. In that endorsement I said I had come to a very different conclusion, but that I still had a great respect for his work. I do.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong </p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><img style="width: 500px;height: 201px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" align="none" width="500" height="201" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/f332ff1f-215…"></a> </div> <h1 class="aolmail_mc-toc-title" style="color: #003d4a;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 34px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong speaks at The American Cathedral in Paris on October 16, 2016</span></span></h1> <span style="font-size:20px"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Click here for more information</a></span></div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_footerContent" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;" valign="middle"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;" valign="middle"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" id="aolmail_utility" valign="middle"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_29f1b92d-b119-4edc-915c-ccff80a9d0bb td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Lesbian bishop
by Karenbueno via Dialogue 16 Sep '16

16 Sep '16

Does anybody want to talk about our new bishop in the United Methodist Church, Bishop Karen Oliveto? She was at Glide Memorial in central San Francisco, and elected by the Western Jurisdiction. She is assigned to what was the Rocky Mountain Conference, which has been combined with the Yellowstone Conference, and has the new name "Big Sky". She will preside over Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and parts of Idaho. Big controversy over her sexual orientation--married lesbian. Her wife is a deaconess in the United Methodist Church. The "rules" of the United Methodists do not allow gay/lesbian persons to be ordained. Karen Bueno

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Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Where did our on-line community go?
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

Was thinking the same thing...it seems to me the decline started after the change in email procedure, where, to "respond" no longer goes to the whole community but just to the person who has sent the email. Same is true of the dialogue listserve. Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com -----Original Message----- From: via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: Oe <Oe(a)wedgeblade.net> Sent: Thu, Sep 15, 2016 4:13 pm Subject: [Oe List ...] Where did our on-line community go? I miss our news and discussions. What happened? Election too depressing? We're too old? Sick? Where did everyone go? _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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