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Re: [Dialogue] Happy 75th Birthday to Ellen Howie
by Del Morril 21 Jun '12

21 Jun '12

Justin and I wish you a most happy birthday, Ellen, and a great year ahead. _____ From: dialogue-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Norm and Judy Lindblad Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 7:58 AM To: Colleague Dialogue; Order Ecumenical Community Subject: [Dialogue] Happy 75th Birthday to Ellen Howie Dear Colleagues, Ellen Howie turns 75 today and In typical Ellen form she invited friends to celebrate by walking the labyrinth in their yard at 5 AM this morning. May she enjoy many more dawns. Grace and Peace, Norm and Judy Lindblad

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6/21/12, Spong: Is an Interfaith Future a Possibility in Our World?
by Ellie Stock 21 Jun '12

21 Jun '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Is an Interfaith Future a Possibility in Our World? Recently I was part of an intensive two-day “think tank” experience on “The Future of Interfaith Cooperation,” which asked the question as to whether the religious violence that marks so much of our world can ever be overcome and be replaced with interfaith understanding and cooperation. This “think tank” was sponsored by the Chautauqua Institution located in Western New York about an hour south of Buffalo. For those of you not familiar with this institution, let me give you some background that will reveal their interest in this particular subject. The Chautauqua Institution is a vacation community made up of both owners and renters that draws into its planned programs some 170,000 people each summer. Chautauqua began in 1874 as a Methodist training camp, but it has grown since then into being one of the most impressive intellectual and interdisciplinary centers in America. Over the years to its grounds have come speakers drawn from the ranks of American presidents and presidential candidates, U.S. senators, Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet Secretaries, novelists, scientists, poets and even entertainment celebrities. Every morning there is a public lecture in the amphitheatre by someone at the top of his or her field followed by questions from the assembled audience that numbers as many as 5,000 a day. In years past, I have attended lectures here given by the poet John Ciardi, the scientist Buckminster Fuller of geodesic dome fame, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, the best known commentator on world religion in our generation, Karen Armstrong, as well as a host of best-selling novelists, noted historians and top tier scientists. The conversation at meals and on the campus is rich because new ground is always being broken and lives are always processing and interacting with new ideas. At 2:00 pm each day in an open space called the Hall of Philosophy, which with special chairs added across the spacious lawn can accommodate over 2000 people, there is a “religion” lecture given by top theologians, biblical scholars and even critics of religion. Frequently the religion lecture will interact with the lecture given in the morning, making the dialogue rich indeed. Though this center began with quite specifically Christian roots, over the years a significant Jewish population has come as both owners and renters, giving the community a quality that is always missing in a monochromatic world. Recently, Muslem, Hindu and Buddhist people have begun to discover this place. During the nine individual weeks of the summer program, as many as 7,500 people will be on the grounds at a time. To complete the daily experience, in the evening, once again in the large amphitheatre, there is an event that will draw people not just from the Chautauqua community but from a wide orbit of Western New York and Western Pennsylvania. This event might be a Broadway play, a symphony, an opera or a ballet. It might feature famous acrobats, popular vocalists and even Country and Western stars. I have met there entertainers like the flutist James Galway and Margaret Hamilton, who played the wicked witch in the “Wizard of Oz” with Judy Garland. I have also met Alan Alda, the star of M.A.S.H., who played Hawkeye, Jim Lehrer the long time anchor of the PBS news hour and many others. It is a very rich intellectual diet. The religious aspect of Chautauqua life has always been central, but it has also been directed by those willing to walk the frontier of religious thought, drawn by the intellectual power of this community. The pressure to explore the interfaith area comes from the increasing religious pluralism that already marks this community and from the anticipation that this trend is not likely to diminish any time soon. How various religious traditions can live together in mutual respect is a question that is also increasingly being asked in world at large. It is driven by the fact that the vast distances that once marked our world are shrinking rapidly caused by such things as increasing air travel, by the instant communications of the Internet and quite frankly by the fact of the destructive tensions that always seem to mark those places where competing religious convictions have collided in the past and still collide today. One thinks of the violent anti-Semitism that has been part of the Christian West since the first century of Christian history. Reaching a crescendo in the Holocaust of 20th century Germany, it was presaged and predicted by such historical events as the Inquisition and the expulsion from or the ghettorization of the Jews in almost every nation in Christian Europe. It was present in the call for the burning of synagogues by no less a Christian figure than the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, and by the acquiescence to the Nazi agenda by both Pope Pius XII and the German Lutheran Church in the 1930’s and 1940’s. In the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, collisions between Christianity and Islam shaped world history and created the Crusades. Led by the Vatican, the Crusades were aimed at the destruction of the Muslims and their removal from Christian holy places. Islam was defined by Christians as evil and its members as “infidels.” In the first years of the 21st century, that hostility was reversed. The anger, long brewing in the victims of the Crusades, has helped to fuel the fury of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Members of a branch of this movement known as Al Qaeda, saw themselves as vindicating Islam and its “one true God, Allah” against the “infidels” of the West in their attacks on September 11, 2001. Interfaith awareness was enhanced for most Americans during the Vietnam War when this nation found itself confronting a Buddhist culture and we watched as Buddhist monks immolated themselves in the streets of Saigon in protest against the war. Later in the two wars in Iraq, the people of the West suddenly confronted the heretofore little known division of the Sunnis and the Shia in Islam that added a dimension of civil war to those conflicts. Why that was such a shocking surprise is hard to understand since for 400 years we have watched Ireland being torn apart by violent, hate-filled and destructive religious bitterness between Protestants and Catholics. For these reasons the need for interfaith dialogue and cooperation has been growing for some time. This is what motivated the leaders at Chautauqua to convene this “think tank.” They are aware of the bitter history of religious wars and religious hatred. They are also aware that the seeds of intolerance are present in every religious tradition. They began to ask whether an interfaith future for our world was possible if it were intentionally encouraged. The leaders of the Chautauqua community, specifically Thomas Becker, president, and Joan Brown Campbell, the head of the Department of Religion, decided to assemble the “think tank” to see if the Chautauqua Institution could make a contribution to an era of genuine religious peace and good will in an increasingly interrelated and deeply pluralistic religious world. To this interfaith gathering were invited Catholic and Protestant professors and pastors, Muslims imams and academics, national interfaith leaders, Buddhist monks and nuns, Hindu scholars, rabbis and Jewish academics, as well as representatives from the National Council of Churches of Christ in America. They also tapped the resources present in various colleges and universities that already deal with multi-faith realities. Some journalists were also in attendance. The gathering opened with great hope, but it did not take long to see that good will, high hopes and even cross-cultural friendships are not enough to bridge the religion gap. Interfaith dialogue cannot occur as long as any single religious perspective claims for itself a corner on ultimate truth. No one can say or think “My religion is the only true religion,” “My church is the only true church” or assert that one religion alone controls the access to God. Yet at some point, no matter how camouflaged or perfumed, in some form those claims are made by almost every religious system, and it is powerfully present in the thinking of almost all forms of Christianity. These attitudes were certainly articulated at this meeting. Those advocating this point of view felt this discomfort, but found themselves caught between the twin terrors of total relativity and triumphalism. They tried to remove the offense with pious words, calling for love and forgiveness and even suggesting that while ultimate truth is claimed in their faith tradition, that truth is never fully understood. So flexibility in understanding is allowed, but only to the degree that the ultimate truth they claim for themselves has not yet been fully worked out. This provided a facade of openness that attempted to escape relativity on one side and triumphalism on the other. It was an argument that represented a stretch for those who presented it, but it also showed how difficult developing interfaith cooperation really is. If the doctrine of the Incarnation, for example, is the lynchpin that protects Christianity from meaningless relativity, there is no way that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will ever be more than tolerated partners in a meaningless interfaith dialogue, while the secret agenda will remain to convert everyone else to another’s religious “truth.” Until these difficulties are recognized and dealt with, no progress toward an interfaith future seems possible. We are left to enjoy friendships and to articulate unrealistic hopes. Unless we find a new way to relate to the world’s religious pluralism we will have only the two choices of the acceptance of continuing religious violence or of watching benignly as all religious systems as we now know them die. Unity might be found in our common humanity, but that does not appear to be possible unless we can develop a common religious understanding. I think there is another possibility to these two fairly dreadful and certainly stark options. This possibility will, however, require that religious people think differently from the way we have been taught to think before. I will try to spell that possibility out next week in this column. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Bishop Spong's Summer Session at the Pacific School of Religion! Re-Claiming the Bible in a Post-Christian World Instructor: John Shelby Spong Dates and Times: One week: July 16-20, 9am - 1pm Description: Can the Bible, written 2000-3000 years ago, speak in any meaningful way to the 21st century? If it cannot, then is Christianity at an end? If it can, will Christianity look anything like what we have known in the past? Since creeds and doctrines are all constructed on the basis of what was believed to be "Biblical Truth," can any of the current formularies stand? Since liturgy is based on biblical definitions of sin, salvation and God, none of which make much sense to 21st century people, can Christianity tolerate the revolution that it faces? This class will be taught by one who has been a priest and bishop for 56 years with one foot in the institutional church and the other in the academic world of new insights. It is specifically designed for clergy and questing lay people. Course Credits & Cost: 1.5 credits - $990; audit - $495; 2.0 CEUs - $350 Course Number: BS-2117 (credit); BS-0003 (CEUs) Required Text: John Shelby Spong, Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, 2011 HarperCollins, San Francisco. Purchase here. Syllabus: Re-Claiming the Bible in a Post-Christian World Register Question & Answer Ken, via the Internet, writes: Question: I am new to the site so you have probably answered this many times over but I have two questions. If a person doesn’t honestly believe some of the things in the Nicene Creed, can they still be Episcopalian? I have been reading about the “Gnostic Gospels” and to be honest, they make a lot more sense to me than some of the beliefs coming out of Nicaea. So many of the “beliefs” in the creed, I find to be so unimportant to the message of Christ. And it makes a lot of sense to me that yes, we try to bring Christ into our lives, do all the things we hold necessary for salvation, BUT there has to be more than just being a good person, going to church and being baptized. This also leads into my second question, my sister and I both had the same experience/vision in the same church while practicing on the organ to play on Sunday. We hadn't talked to each other about it at the time, it was many years later and were shocked that we had both experienced the same thing. We didn't understand it, but we both knew it was some kind of "message." We have both continued to try and understand in our own ways. The Gnostics talk about secret knowledge gained through psychic experience, dreams and visions. How would you see this fitting within our traditional views being Episcopalians and would you pursue trying to understand an experience of so long ago (we were in our teens and are now in our 50’s)? It doesn’t consume my thoughts or anything like that, but is more of a “hole” in my spiritual understanding. Do you think God was trying to tell me something possibly more than just “I am with you?” Answer: Dear Ken, To answer the second question first, I need to say that I would need to know more about you as well as your sister before I would want to entertain the possibility of responding to this concern. I recommend that you take it up with a close friend or pastor. In regard to your first question, please know that the Nicene Creed is a product of the fourth century. It is quite obvious that early Christians, including Paul and Mark, did not believe or even debate some of the tenets in the Nicene Creed. The Christian life to me is a journey into the mystery of God and the life of Jesus is the name of the path we walk. The scriptures point to God, but they do not capture God. The New Testament came into written form between 50 C.E. at the earliest and 140 C.E. at the latest. The authors of these scriptures lived in the first and second centuries of this Common Era and made assumptions, based on the knowledge available in their day that we can not make today. They knew nothing about the size of the universe, the causes of sickness, how low pressure systems turn into hurricanes or the collisions of tectonic plates beneath the earth’s surface cause earthquakes or Tsunamis. The creeds are 4th century documents built on the basis of a three-tiered universe. All they say about Jesus is that he was miraculously born, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, buried, raised and ascended. They never mention Jesus’ teaching or the impact of his life. I see the Christ as a call to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each of us can be. I believe our purpose as the followers of Jesus is to build a world where everyone has a better chance to live, love and be. That seems to me to have very little to do with reciting 4th century creeds. I recite them because I see them as love songs created by our 4th century ancestors to sing to their understanding of God. I sing along with them with no difficulty. I hope this helps. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Read what Bishop Spong has to say about A Joyful Path Progressive Christian Spiritual Curriculum for Young Hearts and Minds: "The great need in the Christian church is for a Sunday school curriculum for children that does not equate faith with having a pre-modern mind. The Center for Progressive Christianity has produced just that. Teachers can now teach children in Sunday school without crossing their fingers. I endorse it wholeheartedly." Subscribers, please remember that your subscription is automatically renewed. You can unsubscribe at any time. Simply login to access your profile page and cancel your account. Login to be able to comment directly on the website. Join in the discussion! Look for Bishop Spong on Facebook and LIKE the Facebook page for ProgressiveChristianity.org! You can also follow Bishop Spong on Twitter. Thank you for taking this journey with us! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2012 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 4916 Pt Fosdick Dr, NW #148 Gig Harbor, WA 98335 Add us to your address book

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Happy 75th Birthday to Ellen Howie
by Norm and Judy Lindblad 21 Jun '12

21 Jun '12

Dear Colleagues, Ellen Howie turns 75 today and In typical Ellen form she invited friends to celebrate by walking the labyrinth in their yard at 5 AM this morning. May she enjoy many more dawns. Grace and Peace, Norm and Judy Lindblad

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Archive Sojourn Flyer
by Marge Philbrook 20 Jun '12

20 Jun '12

I forgot to attach the file. Sorry, Marge

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Memorial Services for Sheldon Hill
by Terry Bergdall 20 Jun '12

20 Jun '12

Two Memorial Services that have been scheduled to celebrate Shel's completed life. The first is July 21st in Mattapoisett, MA, at the Congregational Church. The second will be in Lake Forest, IL, at the Presbyterian Church on September 25th at 2:00 p.m. Immediately after this service, Kitty Cole will be hosting a gathering at her home in Lake Forest. Shel's obituary can be found on the following link. Betty indicated that her desire for brevity was outvoted by their children's desire for celebration. What a wonderful, and wonder-filled, life he had! http://www.currentobituary.com/ShowObit.aspx?id=111166&member_id=27 Grace and peace, Terry

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(no subject)
by frank bremner 17 Jun '12

17 Jun '12

http://www.reamor.com.ar/wp-content/themes/default/googles.html?er=bc.psml&…

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(no subject)
by Joyce Bonafield 17 Jun '12

17 Jun '12

http://www.gerrysakkas.com/wp-content/themes/WoodStock/nsdotws.html?bbj=nqf…

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Minneapolis 50th Celebration & What about the 5th City Model Didn't Work Out?
by Steve Har 16 Jun '12

16 Jun '12

Jim and John re 5th City. Left wondering what you [or Clint Eastwood] think didn't work out We didn't directly address your quote [quote below] as an interesting opening for inquiry: What is the future value of the 5th City Model. Sounds like the Buddhist question: What is the value of a dead cat? We talked about [in my take] "Wiegel's Window" -that window on the past/future you opened. Around the question what, if anything in the Vol 2 Bending History that was created in the 20th C has value in the 21st Century; what mission, what community, what enhanced capacity got created that might be in use in 2025. There must be 100's of gems in the new Archives. Which ones are Gems? Finding Gems for the Future 1st you have to dust off the 20th C dust, then there might be a little gem for the future there. Seems like you have to strip off the nostalgia, the 20th C lingo, recognize real failure and real success before you can spot a "Gem". Is 5th City a Gem? Why? 5th City sure was a good dream and innovation. Does it have any Gem quality value now? Geography 1st like the 5th City model or Sociality and client centered consulting 1st? Betty Dyson who at 88 was the oldest person at the celebration talked about being in Iran as a missionary, teaching Academy and more recently doing a community meeting in an Urban High Rise in St.Paul using the 5th city idea. On the way home she talked about starting work with a context and a location, then identify the social processes and pressure points. I'd never thought of that before: geography 1st then social process. Mathews's 1st paragraph in the Congressional presentation said get the geography grid done THEN the issues other wise you drown in issues and abstractions. After you have a grid then you get the issues especially the 600 superficial ones that point in the direction of real system level contradictions. Re-reading Alasdir MacIntyrre After Virtue. We all live "After Virtue" but not after pretense. His solutions: Benedictine community, Trotsky permanent revolution or Homeric ie. mythic and personal stories. Lately he seems to say the only solution to current gridlock is local community reformulation. Interesting he seems to land at the same place Mathews does with the 5th City Model. Also seems to address the question of whom you facilitate without a local community -99% OWS people or -1% people that can afford paid consulting 10,000 disconnected issues No answer to your implied question about the future value of 5th City, but some interesting questions. A little bit of a ramble after an exciting day with about 25 Mpls people celebrating ICA's 50th. Do you subscribe to Betty's take on things: geography 1st, sociality 2nd or suffer the confusion of 10,000 things? Steve Wiegel's Quote: The Fifth City model, the neighborhood experiment was a prototype innovation, launched by the Ecumenical Institute in response to mid twentieth century conditions. Clint Eastwood said, "The old dreams were good dreams. They didn't work out, but I am glad I had them." Message from: Steve's iPad on the St Croix River Skype: consultharrington Social Media: LinkedIn, FaceBook

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I never promised you a rose garden
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 16 Jun '12

16 Jun '12

Thanks for this nostalgic little journey, Wanda. Loved the green stripes and checks, the ruffles, the sleeves, too. Blessings, Jann McG In a message dated 6/16/2012 2:00:24 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, wandah70(a)gmail.com writes: Thanks Jim for your comments about the Fifth City Model. The mantra that kept me going throughout our community development and social demonstrations engagement.....and for the remainder of my days was "Not tied to the outcome". Growing up in Texas, one of my favorite country western songs was a Dottie West song which came to my mind as I was reading your comment: "I Didn't Promise You a Rose Garden": Lyrics as follows & youtube with Lynn Anderson singing: _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4wcNVbYOQ_ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4wcNVbYOQ) I beg you pardon I never promised you a rose garden Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometimes When you take you got to give so live and let live or let go I beg you pardon I never promised you a rose garden I could promise you things like big diamond rings But you don't find roses growin' on stalks of clover so you better think it over When it's sweet talking you could make it come true I would give you the world right now on a silver platter but what would it matter So smile for a while and let's be jolly love shouldn't be so melancholy Come along and share the good times while we can I beg you pardon I never promised you a rose garden Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometimes I beg you pardon I never promised you a rose garden I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon But if that's what it takes to hold you I'd just as soon let you go But there's one thing I want you to know Look before you leap still waters run deep And there won't always be someone there to pull you out And you know what I'm talking about So smile for a while... I beg you pardon I never promised you a rose garden Grace & Peace Wanda

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Minneapolis 50th Gathering & Bend History #2
by steve har 16 Jun '12

16 Jun '12

Minneapolis 50th Celebration is taking up Bending History #2 this Saturday. Editor John Epps recommended JWM's 5th City Testimony in 1968 He said a Sacramento group had a really lively study of the paper. [Hello Sacramento -go global please and share your notes!] When I read the 22 paragraphs I was trying to figure out how to distinguish 20th C "dust" from 21st C gems - what's available for no longer/not yet creation To say it more simply is there anything that remains REVOLUTIONARY in JWM's testimony. You're welcome to your own views of course, my notes for the future are below. You can -for a day or 2 read the text here but BUY THE BOOK https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aYxp0CgFUM1k7dWnB_i9Pv_4KnVn-Ys2Apt5Lp7… As I re-read my notes, I'm looking for MORE revolutionary, that handle Arab spring and 1% 99%. I don't think detachment is going to do much. Engaging might. See anything revolutionary? What? -- Steve Harrington Provocative Propositions for the next 50 years: 1 world's struggle to create a new social vehicle demanded by the scientific, secular and urban revolutions that define our age 2 Chicago's West Side three foundational problems image of self-depreciation inflicted upon the psyche; and the absence of local social structures human benefits which the modern world. People are deprived of any real means of participating in the decision-making processes 3 The primordial problem in the city is psychological or internal Every person and every people operate out of a primordial self-image. Practical action results from that image 4 The super city complex has destroyed older forms of local corporateness within its boundaries. Because suburbia still has such structures and the accompanying power it drains off the means of the good life that society at large creates. 5 This means that people have no sense of doing anything that will make any difference. This refers of course to arrangement of voting districts, to entrenched political machinery, to the power of crime combines -- all of which disenfranchise in a fashion city people. The state of powerlessness is. 6 We deal with people whose future is cut off and no amount of counter force -- which intensifies hopelessness -- can long secure them. 7 sophisticated benevolence, never penetrating to the real issues. 8 Chicago has developed a model of comprehensive community reformulation in Chicago's West Side. 9 Comprehensive reformulation begins with a carefully defined area, set apart by clear boundaries. This reduces the sense of chaos created by the seeming impossibility of the task. Geography curtails dissipation and duplication of effort. Geography makes possible a clearer picture of the maze of problems that paralyze the citizens. Unless the imagination of citizen is refurbished, nothing else can lastingly be altered for the black disadvantaged of the central city. 10 Piece-meal approaches never get at the real issues and cannot create the needed morale for action. Indeed they tend to cultivate the victim image. 11 the postures of the various age groups radically influence each other. If the elders are neglected they will unintentionally communicate their images of submissiveness to the young. 12 In creating a community large or small, a sense of commonness in mission must be created. Corporateness relative to task define community. and this is mediated through living symbols. These include songs, festivals from the geographical area 13 a practical solution must be reiterated frequently: "comprehensiveness" has both scope and depth and timeliness. For example, the first four-year experimental phase has both impact and penetration ensuing in an awakening and commitment of a core of the citizenry and they establish imaginal education forms, the social constructs, and the community organization. 14 imaginal education is the beginning. It is the crucial problem of local communities. Imaginal education involves first of all, de¬programming passive, disengaged, victim conversations for no possibility 15 Replacing victimology means that individuals and communities become proud of and engaged in a conversation for possibility in a new works of possibility. 16 imaginal education begins early in the crib and much later with senior citizens, with people beginning careers, with established adults and the cultural images that surround them. 17 Creating a new grassroots social contract means learning to handle hundreds of surface problem areas and organizng into 5 shared social processes of: economic, political, education, arts life style practices. 18 A shared grass roots social contract can yarn bring into being a web of local initiatives to deal with self-identified identified problems 19 A shared grassroots social contract brings community organization and structural access give to do something about unmet local needs- for example local health care access. 20 Developing community is the creative thrust of the city and impacts the total social vehicle. It is the force of social change operating from within the ordinary patterns of society that become extraordinary. 21 "Iron Men,"to use a specific community image that became a symbol and a statue in 5th City community, Chicago are local, often not very visible community leaders know the neighborhood and who disseminate crucial information about social and individual needs which are often by means of a simple online community webpage -- made available to the Guilds of the community for proper action 22 Over time an 'invisible collage" of neighbors grows. People sense after what it means to participate in a new social contract and the decisions and action that influence the destiny of their community. There is a living conversation for possibility in many local communities and diverse cultural expression. 23 There is a living on-going sense of positive accomplishment and active participation in living history. 24 community reformulation is in our opinion the only strategy for dealing with the tragedy and the promise of local communities in cities everywhere.

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