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Below is a remembrance about my mom and some photos. Feel free to share
with the ICA community. Sorry it took me so long, it was a more sorrowful
project than I imagined.
All my best,
Rebecca
It is with deep sorrow that we share the loss of Dr.Teresa Lingafelter on
May 10th, 2020 at the age of 71. She was diagnosed with a glioblastoma on
April 10th. Teresa passed away at her home in northwest Portland,
overlooking the west hills covered in spring foliage.
She was born August 1, 1948 in Seattle, WA, daughter of William C. Tobin
and Margaret Tobin, and sister to William and Robert Tobin. She married
Robert Lingafelter in 1968, and had one daughter, Rebecca Lingafelter in
1978. She was mother-in-law to Mark Valadez, and was made a joyful
grandmother by Rosalind Grace Valadez in 2017. She was sister-in-law to
Susan Tobin, Tom and Kathy Lingafelter, Jim and Lynn Lingafelter, Dick and
Linda Lingafelter and Dan and Kitty Lingafelter. She was aunt to Enoch and
Colin Tobin, and Kerrie, Kristie, Sarah, Megan, Tanner and Sam Lingafelter.
And a good friend to many.
Teresa spent her life dedicated to the practice of creating a more just and
equitable world. Starting in grade school, she organized a strike by the
girls crossing guard to petition for new uniforms (which the boys guard had
already received). They got the new uniforms. She attended the University
of Washington, where she earned her BA in History and met Robert. They
joined Ithaca, a community of students and activists, self-described as a
“cadre”, working for radical social change. From there, Teresa and Robert
joined the Institute for Cultural Affairs whose mission is to build a just
and equitable society in harmony with planet Earth through empowering
cultural dimensions of the social process. Their work with the ICA took
them to the Philippines, Australia, the inner city of Chicago, Jamaica,
Malaysia, and Belgium. In the mid-eighties, she returned to the United
States and began a new chapter working in the Mississippi Delta with PINAH
(Partners for Improved Nutrition and Health), an organization that
partnered with local community leaders as well as state and local health
agencies to address systemic issues of inequality in Mississippi’s
healthcare system. From Mississippi, she moved to California to work with
the Freedom From Hunger Foundation. In 1993, she began work on a Master’s
degree in Urban Planning at UCLA, graduating in 1996, and continuing on to
earn her PhD in Urban Planning in 2012. She wrote her dissertation on the
citizen-led Neighborhood Planning Program in Seattle, highlighting the ways
in which this democratic approach to planning resulted in a more equitable
distribution of resources to low-income neighborhoods. In addition to her
academic research which ranged from work on participatory action with SEIU
and home health workers to a program in south Los Angeles that gave cameras
to school children to create visual narratives of their lives in the
inner-city, Teresa worked as a consultant for non-profits and other groups,
applying her extensive skills in facilitation and strategic planning to a
wide range of organizations. These last few years saw her shifting her
focus towards family; contributing joyfully to Rosalind’s care, and
friends; taking frequent trips to Seattle for reunions with Ithaca and her
beloved book club.
Teresa was modest about her own achievements--her PhD, her writing,
strategic planning, leading conversations and workshops. Her analytic mind
was awesome to encounter. At the same time she savored the successes of
others with a cry of “brilliant.” There was a generosity of spirit that
pervaded her encounters with others. Teresacould also be unhesitatingly
abrupt when she believed you were not seeing the injustice in a situation.
When she was leading a group, she had the ability to step back and provide
the space for reflection and insight.
Teresa was a fierce and loyal friend and mother. She loved the newest
technology. She was the first to get a smart phone and to use it in all
sorts of ways. She liked to monitor a lot of things, sleep, time on phone,
minutes exercising, calories. She also had a deep historical understanding
that kept her focused on justice and equality and the long view. She had a
special interest in medieval history and named her first i-phone, Clovis,
after the 5th Century King of the Franks. Teresa was always up for a “field
trip”. A walk in the woods, a boat ride, a survey of the beach, a monitor
at the Women’s March all taken with a sense of adventure and joyfulness.
She relished encounters with animals especially dogs, though also harbor
seals, rabbits, cows, horses, turtles and goats. She approached cooking
with a combination of a general and a connoisseur. She loved figuring out
what to cook. And she was a terrific cook. She was unafraid to try new
things, and encouraged experimentation. She loved dark Norwegian crime
novels, Shakespeare, never missed a Marvel movie, and was a self-admitted
podcast junkie.
She lived her life with profound intention and purpose and touched many
thousands of lives along her path. She was an incredible human being and
she is deeply missed.
The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
-JRR Tolkien
--
Richard H. T. Alton
One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF)
Green Community Connections
Interfaith Green Network
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton(a)gmail.com
**Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March *
http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org
Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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6/11/20, Progressing Spirit, Jenifer Berit: The Powerful Medicine of the (Divine) Feminine
by Ellie Stock 11 Jun '20
by Ellie Stock 11 Jun '20
11 Jun '20
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The Powerful Medicine of the (Divine) Feminine
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Essay by Jennifer Berit
June 11, 2020
Twelfth century Christian Mystic Hildegard of Bingen says of the divine feminine, “she is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines. For she is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun. And both her terror and her goodness are incomprehensible to humans. But she is with everyone and in everyone.”
I’m really interested in how we, and by we I mean seekers, teachers, preachers, clergy, laymen, mystics, atheists and everything in between, think and talk about the divine feminine. Hildegard, who 800 years after her death was canonized as a Saint and Doctor of the Church (only one of four women to ever receive that honor), was an advocate for women’s empowerment in her time, and even she describes the archetype of the divine feminine with two tropes about women that we see endlessly: the gentle goodness, and the vengeful ferocity.
I’m particularly curious about how exactly the divine feminine is “terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning.” Is there something true about the feminine carrying not only the nurturing sweetness of motherhood, but also the frightening scorn of a woman wronged? Or is that a misperception of western philosophy that has been unconsciously passed down generation by generation so that even the wisest and most radical of us forget to examine it?
It feels important to emphasize that Hildegard in speaking about the divine feminine was not talking about female humans as opposed to male humans, for we each carry both the feminine and masculine archetypes within us. And as I continue on this subject I want it to be very clear that is how I approach it as well: I want to consider the spiritual energy of the feminine and how it shows up in each and every human being, and in our world. And also where it is critically absent.
In the summer of 2016 I spent six weeks walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Northern Spain and experienced an incredible physical and emotional healing that to this day I attribute to the blossoming of the divine feminine power within me, aided by my journey and the companions I met along the way. But that’s a story for another time. I was blessed on my walk to make friends with an Episcoplanean priest and after a few days of walking together, to my great benefit, he started practicing his sermons on me.
One morning he asked me if I was familiar with the biblical character Lilith. I told him I wasn’t, and he looked at me as if he were about to give me great news. Then he told me a true story, that went roughly like this:
Did you know that there are two conflicting creation stories in Genesis? There are two distinct stories about the moment that humankind was created and they don’t match up.
The second story is the one I myself was very familiar with, and it appears in Chapter Two. It’s the one where Eve is created from Adam’s rib cage and it begins in verse eighteen.
“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.”
Then Adam names all the animals, but found that none of them was a helper “fit for him.” So this happens in verse twenty-one.
“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Ahem. Excuse me? Does anyone else feel the tingles down your spine when you read it? In this version of the creation story “Woman” was made as a helper to man, and in fact formed from a measly rib bone, taken out of Man. There are two words in particular I want you to pay attention to because they are very telling. The words are “at last.” This, at last, is bone of my bone. We’ll get back to that in a minute.
There’s another creation story that comes before this one, in Genesis Chapter One. After God makes light and water and land and fish in the sea and animals, this happens:
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Then there’s the bit about having dominion over everything that I reinterpret in a previous article. And then there is this:
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Now that’s a different story. In the image of God he created male and female. He created them, and blessed them. Together. That sounds like a story in which men and women from the beginning were created equal.
There’s another interesting linguistic thing happening here. Both of these verses are pulled from the English Standard Version of the bible and the diction is very telling. In the story of Eve created from Adam’s bone she is described using the word “woman,” the origins of which are “wife of man”.
In the chapter one creation story where the two are equally made in God’s image, she is described as “female” whose origins are simply the scientific description for any animal who has the physiologically capacity to breastfeed.
The female created in God’s image is described by her own unique power and offering to life. The woman created of Adam’s bone is described simply as his wife.
If you have ever read the Bible or are somewhat familiar with Christian theology then you know that it is littered with inconsistencies like this. You may also know that there is a whole canon of texts about the old testament written by Rabbis, called the midrash, which attempt to interpret and explain the more challenging passages of the Bible, or Torah, particularly the frustrating ones that utterly contradict themselves.
They have an explanation for these two conflicting creation stories, and the explanation is Lilith.
The midrash interpretation says that the original creation story shows the moment that God created Adam, male, and Lilith, female. And Lilith was powerful and strong, created in God’s image just as Adam. And one day in the garden they were having a dispute. Now I’m not making this up, the dispute was that they were being fruitful and multiplying, and in doing so Adam, the strong man, wanted to be on top. But Lilith, an equally strong woman deeply aware of pleasure and passion and love, also wanted to be on top.
The story goes, they couldn’t get over their dispute and Lilith decides, rather than remain in Eden with Adam, to escape it. So Lilith, powerful and wise as she was, learned the name of God, whispered it on a wind, and flew out of the garden, never to return.
Remember that “at last” part? Adam doesn’t have such a great time living with his equal, so finally when God makes a subservient companion for his aid, made from his rib, he sighs in relief. “At last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” and thus Eve comes into existence.
But that’s not the end. Lilith doesn’t actually disappear. Rather, over the centuries she becomes absolutely demonized in Christian theology.
Women feared her. Men feared her. When men were unfaithful to their wives, Lilith the seductress was often blamed. She evolved over time to take on a demonic image, often depicted with Medusa-like snakes in her hair, or a grotesque face. Right around Hildegard of Bingen’s time, women would chant incantations against Lilith while they were pregnant, for fear that she would find them and steal their newborn babies and eat them.
Now don’t we see this stereotype play out over and over, even in our modern fairytales, movies, shows and books? Isn’t Lilith the wicked witch of the west? Isn’t she Nurse Ratched? The evil step sister? The spiteful, jealous wife or girlfriend? The devil who wears Prada?
Of course our pop culture and media is an expression of our lived culture, and aren’t there many ways, both vulgar and subtle, that we live with the same message every day?
I think about growing up as somewhat of a “tom boy.” I loved hiking and being active, wearing shorts and getting dirty, playing soccer, and was praised for being strong and driven. At the same time my transgender younger sister who, though socialized as a boy, loved to wear dresses and put on makeup even from a young age, was shamed for being “weird” or “indecent.” In the way that we sexualize and engender children from an early age, and what is considered acceptable, do we not subtly tell them “it’s okay to want to be like a boy, but not at all to be like a girl”?
If the microcosm of the demonization of femininity is my trans sister not feeling safe to fully express her feminine nature until her late twenties, the macrocosm is the one we are so familiar with: the way humanity has repressed mother earth and all her creatures and the wild nature within ourselves for centuries.
This is what is at stake. Our full beautiful identities. The planet we call home. This is what we sacrifice when we demonize divine feminine power, force her out of our hearts and bodies, and replace her with a distorted, subservient ghost of who she is.
Friend and Mentor Matthew Fox says in the introduction to his book about Hildegard de Bingen, “even today, despite all our progress, denial of the feminine is so pervasive that anthropologist Glenn Hughes says a male terror of women is woven into every institution. It’s this denial of the feminine that’s destroying the ecosphere.”
And yet, I know there is a way to integrate the two energies, the masculine and the feminine and the power of each, in a divine dance in ourselves and in our world. There are examples everywhere around us, that don’t require action or effort, only a willingness to surrender.
In his book, Fox calls Hildegard a “mover and shaker” and even “a virtual earthquake to the establishment today.” I grew up in California, the land of earthquakes. It’s such an interesting way to describe a powerful woman channeling the Divine Feminine.
In the world of Man, the world of dominion, the one where we enslave animals to eat them and build fortresses to protect ourselves from the feared wild earth, Earthquakes are indeed one of the most destructive and violent natural forces a human can encounter. The year I was born, the Loma Prieta Earthquake brought its wrath on my home city of San Francisco. It killed people, destroyed homes, started fires in the outdated electricity of our buildings. It must have looked terrible with the terror of avenging lightning. It must have looked wicked.
And yet, taken out of the human context, say in a time before humanity, or in a place we haven’t colonized, what is an earthquake? It is a powerful natural force of creation - one that has the ability to create seas and mountains, much like God. Are they really terrible? Are they wicked? Or is it our fear of the uncontrollable wild that moves us to call them disasters?
We learned a lot in California about the intensely hard, structured, rigid buildings that penetrate our skylines all over the world. We learned how to adapt to these “disasters” knowing that there would be no way to attack, distinguish, or trample over them. So we figured out how to build our cities in such a way that they wouldn’t crumble if the earth shook beneath them. The only way. Do you know what brings a modern man-made building to code in earthquake country? It has to be flexible. It must be designed to shift and move. It has to make room for the intense force of nature. It needs to surrender to the earthquake, so as to stand before it and let it move through its very bones. It needs to be able to dance. This is how palm trees survive intense hurricanes: they bend.
Is that not the same in each and every human being? If we could relax the masucline rigidity we have been conditioned to build up within ourselves, and allow room for the uncontrollable wild feminine within, then we are flexible enough to dance with all the divine forces this universe offers.
As I write, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep the globe, while Black Lives Matter protests ignite across the country. In this unprecedented shake up of cultural norms and business as usual we are seeing the floodgates open that have long repressed our collective anger toward toxic masculinity, while at the same time we have gotten a glimpse of a possible world where feminine energy balances the masculine, in the COVID lockdown.
With no intention of trivializing the deep suffering that has been caused by the pandemic, I do want to share how I have felt optimistic and inspired by peering into the possibility of a new story for our culture: one where mutual aid is a way of life, where humans respect the well-being of total strangers to the point of being willing to sacrifice their own agendas and comfort, where we prioritize our relationships rather than our to-do lists, check in on one another just because, make meals for those who can’t provide for themselves, slow down our work, our commute, where we need less and want less and ask for less of the planet, where our rigid masculine skyscrapers remain mostly empty, where wildlife once again roams the landscapes they’ve been banished from for generations. We have called the pandemic disastrous for how it has absolutely upended the way of life we are so used to. How might it also be contributing to building a new world?
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke says “Take your well-disciplined strengths, stretch them between the two great opposing poles, because inside human beings is where God learns.”
The divine feminine is not terrible or wicked or disastrous. Neither is the masculine, though we’ve allowed it too much toxic dominion over it’s creatively opposing force. If we can make room for the fminine within us and within our world, if we can stand between the polarities of the energies between us and let God move through us to learn, we will find ourselves collectively dancing to the rhythm of love.
~ Jennifer Berit
Read online here
About the Author
Jennifer Berit is the co-author of Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action and works in book publishing as a private consultant for authors assisting with manuscript editing and book publicity. She is also the co-director of Wild Awakenings, an adult Rites of Passage organization dedicated to fostering the thriving of Earth, life, and humanity. Jennifer was on the Board of Trustees at the Unity in Marin Spiritual Community for three years, serving as the Board President for 18 months. Also at Unity in Marin, Jennifer was a guest speaker for Sunday mornings, she led Rites of Passage groups for teenagers, and founded a young adult interfaith group committed to conscious connection, community service, and social activism. She is a passionate hiker, reader, writer, and public speaker.
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
When people say I want to walk the way of Jesus what should that mean?
A: By Rev. Matthew Syrdal
Dear Reader,
This is a big question. I suppose nothing is more important than getting curious about Jesus, and what his Way really was.
Become a beginner and forget (nearly) everything you think you know about Jesus. Jesus asked a lot of questions. Ask questions like, was Jesus a Christian? If you read through the Bible thoroughly and the Gospels a few times, what do you notice really mattered to Jesus? How did he live his life? What was his view of money? His relationship to power and privilege? How did he understand (and use) his sacred texts, Torah? The Prophets? Writings? What was his relationship to nature like? From what inner-authority did Jesus speak and act? What’s that about? To whom did Jesus speak — the egoic personality or to the deeper nature — in his encounters with strangers and when teaching his disciples?
There are many ideas and images out there about the way of Jesus. Many great resources, even communities can help shape our faith. But at the end of the day, no one can walk the Way for you, and to some extent at least, you must go it alone. To paraphrase Carl Jung, to pick up your cross and follow Jesus is not to do what Jesus did, rather it is to live your life as fully, as authentically, and as dangerously as Jesus lived his. When people talk about ‘walking the way of Jesus’ can mean justifying our own moralistic and self-righteous attitudes (those of the ‘in-group’, whether we are Bible-believing fundamentalists or progressive eco-feminists) that actually impede our development and spiritual growth (individuation). Moralism in this sense is a survival strategy, like an inner-conformist, victim, or critic that keeps us safe by keeping us (and our image of God) small. ‘
‘Walking the way of Jesus’ should mean putting the journey of individuation before all else. “Whoever would come after me must take up (their own unique) cross… for whoever would save their life will lose it, but whoever would lose their life (for my sake and the sake of the kingdom) will find it.” This journey is cruciform for it always necessitates a death before a resurrection, a collapse of an old way, before opening a new path. It often leads through multiple little deaths, ‘molts’, to who we thought we were, and who we thought God was, or what the world actually is. The way of Jesus offers conflict, fear and pain, but it also leads to the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price!
~ Rev. Matthew Syrdal
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Matthew Syrdal M.Div., lives in the front range of Colorado with his beautiful family. Matt is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian church (USA), founder and lead guide of WilderSoul and Church of Lost Walls and co-founder of Seminary of the Wild. Matt speaks at conferences and guides immersive nature-based experiences around the country. In his years of studying ancient Christian Rites of Initiation, world religions, anthropology, rites-of-passage and eco- psychology Matt seeks to re-wild what it means to be human. His work weaves in myth and ceremony in nature as a way for people to enter into conversation with the storied world in which they are a part. Matt’s passion is guiding others in the discovery of “treasure hidden in the field” of their deepest lives cultivating deep wholeness and re-enchantment of the natural world to apprentice fully and dangerously to the kingdom of god. Matt has been coaching, and guiding since becoming a certified Wild Mind nature-based human development guide through the Animas Valley Institute and is currently training to become a soul initiation guide through the SAIP program.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Study of Life, Part 3:
On Meeting a Shaman in the Amazon Rainforest
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
August 13, 2009
In studying for my recent book on life after death I spent considerable time examining the religious history of human beings. Our religious journey has been long and complex. Beginning in the hunter-gatherer religion of animism we have traveled as a species through the fertility cult religions of our early agricultural civilizations into the coupled gods of the Olympus and then through tribal religions into the budding monotheism of today. At each stage we picked up practices that still remain a part of the human religious scene, from the fire we place on our altars at the time of worship to the evolving recovery of the feminine that is occurring now in the Christian Church. Far more than most religious people know or are willing to admit, modern religious practices have ancient roots stretching back far beyond the boundaries of our particular religious system. We tend, however, to have very little understanding of, or sympathy for, the religious traditions of those who are different from us. It was, therefore, a rare privilege for me, while in the Amazon Rainforest, to have an opportunity to meet a Shaman, who lives and functions within an animistic religious world akin to that of our earliest human ancestors and to see firsthand some of the most primitive stages of human religious development. It was an experience so moving and profound that I want to share it with my readers through this column.
The Shaman’s name was Domingo. That is all, simply Domingo. He was about 65, though he looked old for that age. He was a single man, having never married. Being single was not a requirement of the office, but it was encouraged by suggesting that sex was not appropriate while actually functioning as the Shaman. Domingo had served his people in this office for some 40 years. In true animistic fashion he viewed the world as “spirit-filled” and defined himself as a “spirit-filled man” or at least as one through whom the spirit flows. His role within the tribe is to be “the banisher of evil spirits,” a not an untraditional role for the designated “holy man.” Both he and his tribe believe that he enhances the wellbeing of his people. Domingo was introduced to us by our guide in the Amazon. It was a regular feature offered on the tour, a unique way to open Westerners to the culture of the area.
While pleased with this opportunity, I discovered in this meeting what the barriers to real communication were. The Shaman spoke no language other than his tribal dialect. There are perhaps six different tribal groups in the rainforest, most of whom cannot even communicate with each other, to say nothing of with the outside world. It slowly dawned on me that because of this language barrier, this Shaman had never read anything unless it had been translated into his native dialect. He had not heard of Galileo and had no concept of space as we know it. He had not heard of Darwin and had no sense of evolution. He knew nothing of Pasteur and had no awareness of the causes of sickness other than “evil spirits.” He had only the vaguest sense of the world beyond the rainforest. Places like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea had no content in his mind. In order for us to talk with the Shaman we spoke to our guide, who translated our English into the Spanish of our native expert, who in turn translated the Spanish into the native dialect of the Shaman. The Shaman responded and his words made the reverse journey. One never knew how our questions were interpreted or what was lost in translation.
We wanted to know how he became the Shaman, what the selection process involved? He answered that he was “chosen by the spirit of the forest” and that it was the responsibility of the Shaman to reflect the “unity of the forest.” We asked how the “spirit of the forest” made the selection. He said that a young man or woman (yes, in rare instances women could be Shamans in this tribe) would go into the forest and have some kind of transcendent experience, perhaps losing consciousness and even staying in the forest under the forest’s protection for a number of days. When regaining consciousness, the candidate would seek out known hallucinogenic leaves in the forest in order to test the vision. The three major hallucinogenic leaves available and used for this purpose were ayawaska, the most potent of the three; wanto, also called “angel’s trumpet;” and tobacco. All have known hallucinogenic properties. Domingo favored tobacco, hand rolled, but he also used wanto. He tended to avoid ayawaska. In this drug-induced state of euphoria, Domingo said he saw visions and perceived things that others could not see. Among them were the causes of sickness and the harm that evil spirits did to people. He used these powers in the practice of his healing art. When the people of the tribe heard about these experiences upon his safe return from the forest, they acclaimed him chosen by the “Spirit of the Forest” to be the next Shaman. He was then apprenticed to a Shaman nearing the end of his life and career from whom he learned the rituals and the words to use in fulfilling his calling.
People came to Domingo to escape perils like the evil eye, a spirit of weakness, or in an attempt to contact the dead in time of grief. His treatment included the use of hallucinogenic leaves so that the boundary between this world and the Spirit world might be breached, fear banished and the comfort of seeing a deceased loved one happy or at peace could be known.
Domingo indicated a willingness to perform one of his ritual practices on a member of our group. A volunteer quickly raised her hand and was invited to sit on a stool in front of him. She closed her eyes and the rest of us were told to be silent and to enter as deeply as we could into the meaning of this experience. We did. The ritual began. Domingo carried a leaf fan, gray in color, that rustled audibly when he shook it or gave it a whip-like stroke into the air, which we were told meant that he had cleansed the troubling spirits from the victim. He moved the leaf fan up and down the woman’s body, not touching her with anything but the breeze of the leaves, while he chanted words that we could not understand. They did, however, seem repetitive as many religious chants are. Periodically, he would face away from his “patient” and flick his leaf fan vigorously toward the woods. After this had gone on for some five minutes, he began to make guttural sounds, as if to clear his throat of a lingering phlegm, then circled his “patient’s” head with his hand and began to blow on her head. This, we were told, was his attempt to pour a new and positive spirit into her. In about ten minutes the ritual was ended.
Was this Voodoo? I do not think so. It would be easy from our perspective to be critical and to see this as some primitive act that more developed cultures have discarded. But is it? In the Christian baptismal service, we pour water on the child’s head and pray that all evil spirits will be banished from the child’s life as the child renounces “the world, the flesh and the devil.” Is that really very different? Are not both experiences attempts to bring life into harmony with what we perceive to be infinitely real?
Can modern people make contact with the religious and health practices of a tribe of people who live isolated in the Amazon Rainforest? I think we can, but only if we make a crucial distinction. All human experience is the same. It is the way that we interpret that experience that is so different. All human beings live with forces we cannot control. To help us cope with that world and our powerlessness we all design cultural rituals to bring help from beyond ourselves. It is also the fate of self-conscious beings to feel alone, separated from the world of nature, and so every religion develops a method of achieving atonement which, we assert, is ultimate. Thus the thing we have in common with the people of the Amazon Rainforest is that we share the anxiety of what it means to be human, which includes the knowledge that we are mortal and on a one way path toward death. This human experience is universal.
When any one begins to explain or interpret that experience, each of us does so in terms of the way each perceives the nature of life and the nature of the universe. Here the explanations vary widely as the perceptions of the universe are based on the knowledge available to us, the time and place we live in history, the nature of our education, the values handed down for many generations and many other factors. Are our modern explanations better than those of a people who inhabit the Amazon Rainforest? We do see through a wider lens. We have lived through changes in the perception of reality that have been given to us by the intellectual giants of our cultural past. We know things about the universe, about the laws of cause and effect, about our evolutionary history and about germs and viruses as the causes of sickness that they do not know. We can minimize the effect of epilepsy with drugs while earlier, even in Jesus’ time, he sought to banish the demons that had apparently possessed the victim. We treat pneumonia with penicillin, leukemia with chemotherapy and remove tumors surgically. None of these things are available in the world of Domingo, the Shaman. The explanation of why things are as they are will always vary widely based upon the knowledge available to the one explaining. No human explanation, however, is ever final and thus no human explanation can ever be literalized. Every explanation is always an expression of cultural knowledge, but no explanation can ever be substituted for the human experience, which is common, universal and real.
I do not judge the work of Domingo the Shaman. I seek to appreciate it. He works within his animistic world view to make sense out of life. I work within my Western mechanistic world to make sense out of life. The goal of us both is to create human wholeness, to introduce us to transcendent dimensions of reality that our experience tells us must either be real or be delusional. Both Domingo and I are convinced that we are in touch with reality. I am glad I had the experience of entering, if but for only a few moments, into the worldview of a culture vastly different from my own and was able to see a oneness in the humanity we share.
~ John Shelby Spong
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| Announcements
Discover how to deepen into your spiritual journey toward wisdom, justice & compassion. June 17th join a free video event with renowned spiritual pioneer Matthew Fox to revisit the groundbreaking teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas - iconic philosopher and Doctor of the Church — and apply his profound wisdom to the circumstances of your own life, no matter what you’re facing. READ ON... |
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“You dare to say Yes—
and experience a meaning.
You repeat the Yes—
and all things acquire a meaning.
When everything has a meaning,
how can you live anything but a Yes.”
Dag Hammarskjöld from his book,
“Markings”
Family, friends and colleagues:
We invite you to join us in a virtual Memorial Celebration for Marge Philbrook, on Wednesday, June 10, at 10:00 a.m. Central Standard Time, US (Marge’s 92nd birthday).
We hope to have a ‘gathered’ memorial for Marge in the future, when safe. Perhaps this will be on June 10, 2021 in Chicago.
We will begin with a photo show of Marge’s life accompanied by music provided by some of her grandchildren. Then there will be a (sort of) formal celebration followed by a sharing time for brief stories and reflections about Marge. If you would like to share something during this ‘open mic’, please contact Dallas and Donna Ziegenhorn at margephilbrook2020(a)gmail.com <mailto:margephilbrook2020@gmail.com> so they can guideour Zoom Storytime.
If you would like to attend the Memorial Celebration, please click this link to register:
https://tablexi.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArdOyppjsuG9QmPuXztuHlNdSA_NJUx3… <https://tablexi.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArdOyppjsuG9QmPuXztuHlNdSA_NJUx3…>
The process is quick. In your confirmation, you will receive a link that you will use to join us for the event via email. We will also send a program by email later.
Registering is easy to do, however, if you have any issues you can email Lloyd Philbrook phoolish(a)whatafool.com <mailto:phoolish@whatafool.com> If you run into problems with your zoom registration, he can help you.
We hope you can help us celebrate Marge’s passing. In lieu of flowers, we are requesting donations for the Archives at ICA USA in Marge’s memory. https://www.ica-https://www.flipcause.com/hosted_widget/hostedWidgetHome/Mz… <https://www.ica-usa.org/donate-archives.html>
Grace and Peace,
Roy, Gene, Deana, Kenneth, Paula, Larry and Evelyn
P.S. If you are unable to attend, the celebration will be recorded and made available later. We collected addresses to invite you from several places, so you may get more than one invitation, we apologize for this inconvenience. Also, you may forward this invitation to anyone who might wish to participate.
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Dear Doris,
I hope you are well and comfortably situated in your present abode. May you find some degree of solace in knowing you and Charles have a very special place in the hearts of your family, friends, and colleagues. Remembrances of Charles's Memorial abound far and wide as we create new modes of celebration.
In the midst of the events and complexities inherently engulfing us in this our season, we look for an anchor and turn to the Word that will meet us at any given moment we seek to encounter the unknown. We pause in the awareness that we are known by the Mystery that holds the key to the future and will sustain us in it.
As we wait on the Lord to pay a visit to us in our own particular time and space, we turn to tradition to help us recapture remembrances and revelations from the past. Oh, we may have thought we had life all figured out in a brief moment of mercy and grace, yet we soon encounter a significant event of personal or worldwide consequence. Or maybe we drift away into a litany of inconsequential events and live for those daily bouts of busyness where the Land, River, Mountain, and Sea that JWM discovered arrives impacting our five senses. And I have experienced that many times now; yet it won't be forced. Living a life filled with heart-talk sustained by the Holy Spirit's guide to a fairly constant conversation with the Deity is a path I've found to be trustworthy. Praying incessantly is possible even when we have difficulties and struggle with prayer.
Miracles also happen in the Other World and we tell the awe-filled news to all who would listen. I've worn glasses for extreme nearsightedness from age 12 to 78. I left my glasses in the apartment by mistake one day in February 2019 to catch a ride to the post office with a neighbor, and on entering the car I looked across the street, lo and behold, I could read the signs and see everything clearly!! Yet it didn't cure my dry eyes. (So I wouldn't get a big head about it).
I shared my miracle witness with my Evangelical House Church that I will attend when our hiatus is over. The congregants were amazed for a moment it seemed at my witness--yet they don't treat me any differently, thank God for that. Our service is really a Bible Study and we have communion once a month for about a dozen diverse folks (more on holidays) in a fairly spacious bungalow near City Park in Denver. The repast afterward is a pot luck feast. Pastor Duell's wife is usually quite adept at preparing an entree. They have two adopted daughters of color in their large family. All their children are grown now and sometimes attend service with us. I think I contribute to our church leaning toward becoming more progressive in a good way (using second teacher skills) as we reflect deeply on sharing our insights into the Scriptures.
Knowing you and Charles, Doris has expanded my universe and deepened my spirit journey over the past decades. And both of you have a welcome seat on my Meditative Council. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is real, alive, and well in the hearts and minds of those who love God and are the called according to God's purpose.
Kindfully yours,
dawn collins(formally Lingo)
We love the Final Reality because the Final Reality loved us first.- 1 John 4:19
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Enjoy catching up with what is happening
in ICAs across the globe....
And please click the link below for the
latest issue of the Global Buzz
Global Buzz Report: June 2020
or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar
http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-20/2020-06-01.php
Read the latest
ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine
brought to you now on Medium.com
See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves
ICAI Communications
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*Hello All, *
We hope you are safe and well. In the midst that all that is happening
around us, it is important that we continue to ask ourselves what we want
to get accomplished in the last chapter of our lives. We invite you to join
us for our second cohort (Starting Friday June 19th). We are a learning
community that explores our goals for the last chapters of our lives, and
are getting our affairs in order as we prepare for what is next.
If you are interested, please sign up here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXUVbbZzhhnqvm-AFS9HH8lQKGCoybtkF…>--
see more below!
------------------------------
1.
Join The Last Chapter Virtual Learning Community
The What: We are piloting a workshop/seminar or series, that would allow
people (no matter what age) to think seriously and intentionally about
their final journey in life, their death, and make concrete decisions about
their funeral/memorial service, organ or body donation, distribution of
assets, obituary, burial/ cremation/ natural, etc.
The Why: Many of us who have seen our parents or children die, are
beginning to look at our own end of life decisions. As an organization
that has seen itself as one who brings significance to everyday life
events, the ICA and others are asking the question: “What could ICA create
that would help everyone, no matter what age, to look at their own death,
and make the necessary end of life decisions?
Our Ask: The curriculum and design of the virtual learning community around
‘the last Chapter’ of life is currently being worked on, and will be
piloted on the third Friday of the last month of the quarter (June 19th,
August 21st, October 23rd, December 18th) from 9am- 1pm Central Time. If
you would like to join this 2020 Virtual Learning Community. Please sign up
here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXUVbbZzhhnqvm-AFS9HH8lQKGCoybtkF…>
.
2.) Tell Us how you would like us to Celebrate your Contribution to ICA
The What: We would like to share your story, acknowledge and celebrate you,
your gifts, and your unique contribution to the ICA/EI/OE mission. We
would like to know what you would like the Institute to do (if anything)
for your end of life celebration.
The Why: ICA staff are frequently experiencing first hand, or hearing about
the deaths of former members of EI/ICA/OE. With many of these former
members, the current ICA staff do not have personal knowledge of who they
are or what they did while they were members. As more and more of the “old
ICAers” continue to die, it has become obvious to some of the current ICA
staff that there needs to be a self-conscious effort on the part of the
organization to acknowledge the contribution of these ICA stewards. They
realize that the current organization and mission was built on the backs of
those who went before and who are leaving this world at an ever-increasing
rate. They are asking themselves: “What would be an appropriate way for
ICA to honor current and former members when they transition?” 5th City has
always, either before someone dies or at the funeral, prepared and read
statements to acknowledge and honor a person’s contribution to making 5th
City what it was and is, both to the community and the world. Looking at
this as a possible model, we would put this idea out either to the
Directory or to the EI/ICA/OE listservs, or both. We have already
experienced several deaths of former and current members who did not leave
any instructions. Some family members wanted the ICA involved. We
acknowledge that there will be some members or their families who do not
want the ICA involved or any acknowledgement from them. That will be
honored, but this response is to be sure to acknowledge and honor those who
wish to be. We have also experienced former members who wanted to have a
service in Chicago, wanting to have Daily Office, wanting to have their
ashes spread in 5th City, wanting particular people to sing a particular
song, etc. While it is impossible for ICA to send people to every
funeral/memorial service that occurs, there could be volunteers who live
nearby who would be able to represent the ICA and read the Declaration on
behalf of the organization. Another idea is that every year the ICA would
hold a Memorial Service in honor of those who died that year. The Archives
volunteers could retrieve information about unique contributions of
individuals. Pam is currently working on a draft of the “Declaration”
template about the significance of life, death and the ICA.
Our Ask: Email Dick Alton richardalton(a)gmail.com, on how would you like
ICA to celebrate your contributions to the Institute. We are still
figuring out how to collect this information from our colleagues, so
whatever thoughts or examples you can send will help us get clear on next
steps.
--
Richard H. T. Alton
One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF)
Green Community Connections
Interfaith Green Network
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton(a)gmail.com
**Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March *
http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org
Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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Colleagues,
Attached is the report of the recent ICA Social Research Center’s Spring Gathering held virtually May 10-13, 2020. There were 102 participants from the USA, Australia, Peru, Canada, UK, Kenya, Taiwan, Nepal, and Malaysia.
We hope you enjoy this interactive report and the Nine Research Arenas. View the real-time videos of each session as you explore the collections more deeply. Note that the icon on each page will take you directly to that Collection on the website.
You are invited to engage with our team to enhance and expand the work already done.
o Do you have archive files that would be helpful to add to the website? If so, please make a PDF copy and e-mail to ICA Social Research Center (aka Global Archives) at globalarchives(a)ica-usa.org<mailto:globalarchives@ica-usa.org>.
o What stories could you write to share on the website? (see Human Development: Majuro for Lee and Leah Early stories; see Institute Foundations for Hilde Betonte stories; see Imaginal Education: Elementary for Jann McGuire story, etc.).
o If you would be willing to work with a Collection Team to create the website pages, contact related Collection Guide.
o Use your artistic, poetic, and technical experience to invite people to explore the treasure trove of wisdom in these collections for their arenas of engagement in building a better society.
o Help finish the work that Marge Philbrook and so many others have initiated by making a contribution to the Archives Fund in memory of Marge or other departed archive angels.
On behalf of the ICA Social Research Center Team,
Lynda Cock USA
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6/04/20, Progressing Spirit: Matthew Fox: Covid-19 and Climate Change: Why Are We Here and Where are we Headed?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 05 Jun '20
by Ellie Stock 05 Jun '20
05 Jun '20
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Covid-19 and Climate Change: Why Are We Here and Where are we Headed?
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| Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
June 4, 2020One of the “ultimate questions” humans like to pose is this: Why are we here?
This might seem to be a particularly appropriate question to ask in a time of the coronavirus plague when so much is becoming uprooted, when so many are afraid and suffering and dying. Through the months and weeks we have been sheltering indoors and away from our normal routines—on retreat some might say—such questions are very much in the air. Surely death and the threat of death bring us around to asking the most basic of questions such as: Why are we here?
There are many and varied answers throughout history: We are here to survive; we are here to be happy; we are here to make money; we are here to make friends; we are here to raise a family; we are here to do well in our profession; we are here to shine and be honored; we are here to serve; we are here to save the planet; we are here to… (fill in the blanks)...
Thomas Berry proposes that we are here to… celebrate. Says he: “In the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.”[1]
In this regard he is echoing his namesake, Thomas Aquinas who says “joy is the human’s noblest act.” We are here to educe our nobility, to tap into and release our joy; to bring joy out of one another. Aquinas declares that the primary origin and end of the universe is Joy when he declares that “Sheer Joy is God’s and this demands companionship.” Joy then becomes a final (and first) cause.
In turn he is laying the groundwork for the teachings of Julian of Norwich who lived her entire life during a plague that returned in waves time and again throughout her lifetime. It was Julian who taught that “God is goodness” and “God is everything which is good… and the goodness which everything has is God.” Amazingly, Julian clung fiercely to the goodness of God and nature in spite of the pandemic that swirled all around her and killed one out of three people in Europe before it subsided.
Seeing the world as good, she encouraged all to develop their capacity for joy. Aquinas had written about “original goodness” and Hildegard of Bingen about “original wisdom” and Julian wrote about original love when she declares that “God never began to love us” for “we have been loved from before the beginning.” My word for the same concepts is Original Blessing.
All this is spiritual grounding for a time of pandemic. Julian resisted the patriarchal cynicism and pessimism and religious fanaticism that rose up because of the plague (fueled by scientific ignorance about its origins). As such, she becomes a kind of patron saint for surviving a plague. The key principle being: Don’t forget the Via Positiva, the taste of goodness.
Do things exist not only to strive to exist and to live but also to celebrate? When I hear the birds in the morning singing furiously I presume that is what is going on.
When the plague does eventually die down, it may be a fitting time to raise questions that matter. So much has been exposed in this time of covid emergency—the huge disproportion between the affluent and the poor, between black and white, between blue collar workers (whose jobs are often more necessary than white collar workers), between large cities and rural areas: Lots to learn from these realities.
We can also take another look at how little we have paid attention to viruses that can put a stop to our lives as well as our economies. Questions about what/whom the great “defense departments” of the world are defining as our enemies. What are they defending us from? It would seem that viruses are more of a threat to us than other nations since a virus managed, in a matter of a few months, to bring our economies to a stand still and to spread death and severe sickness and the fear of death. Maybe it is time to withdraw a lot of the $56,000 per second our species is spending on weapons and militarism and invest that money in survival instead. To defend the planet against ourselves. To face climate change without denial.
What a wonderful new direction the priority of Joy would bring to discussions about economics that ought to be in full swing as we move on from this plague; and to directions we want education to take; and politics.. Why are we here, anyway? And it helps to know where here is.
This is where cosmology comes in, as the late and great spiritual master Howard Thurman observed: “It is natural that man should concern himself with beginnings. This is a part of the curiosity of the mind. Without it there would be no exploration of the world and there would be no growth… This is an inherent characteristic of mind; it is not unique to any age of man, culture, or society. Contemplation concerning origins is a part of the curiosity of the race.”[2] (203)I propose we are here to praise. Praise is the noise that joy makes. Praise flows from a grateful heart—even when times are tough the heart can keep praising or ought to. As Wendell Berry put it, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts... Practice resurrection.”
How different this is from patriarchal cynicism, from a death wish of patriarchy so powerfully captured by Adrienne Rich when she talks about a “fatalistic self-hatred” that is embedded in patriarchal value system.
This alone might explain much of the dark news that has accompanied the coronavirus emergency, the invitations by a sitting president to inject Lysol, the so-called demonstrations (funded we have learned from the secretary for education of all places!) to open society up before the virus is stemmed, etc.
Might this crisis prove the end of patriarchy and its self-pity tirades and its investment in necrophilia? If so, that might make the suffering it has wrought all worthwhile.
Where are we Headed? Climate Change and the Corona Virus
In an excellent article on “The COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systemic Analysis,” physicist Fritjof Capra observes that, in his opinion, “the coronavirus must be seen as a biological response of Gaia, our living planet, to the ecological and social emergency humanity has brought upon itself.”[3] The world population, now grown to 7.8 billion persons, derives, he feels, from an “irrational obsession of our political and corporate leaders with perpetual economic and corporate growth” that threatens our survival as a species and many other species as well. Thanks to COVID-19, however, “our political and financial elites are forced to pay attention” as economies shut down and death tolls rise around the world.
We have “fractured the web of life” and humans have destroyed so many animal habitats that viruses which had lived in symbiosis with certain animal species have now “jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they are highly toxic or deadly.” This pattern occurred in the 1960’s when a rare species of monkeys jumped from West Africa to humans as a whole. The resulting HIV virus and the AIDS epidemic killed an estimated 39 million people worldwide. More recently the coronavirus jumped from a species of bats to humans in China and then around the world. We are learning the hard way that “biology trumps politics and economics.”
The silver lining in this pandemic is that “social justice is no longer a political issue of left versus right; it becomes an issue of life and death. To prevent the spread of pandemics—now and in the future—it will be essential to improve the living conditions of the poor.” Working for the sake of the common good becomes a life and death issue that can be met only “by collective, cooperative actions.”
The most effective way of limiting human population growth has been proven to be to educate girls and young women and uplift the status of women around the world. Here too, gender justice and social justice go “hand in hand with ecological balance.”
The coronavirus holds some silver linings that can awaken humanity. Due to limited traffic, pollution of major cities around the world has diminished dramatically; with giant cruise ships grounded, the canals in Venice are now so clear that fish can be seen again. In Punjab, India, stunning views of the tops of the Himalayas are now visible for the first time in thirty years. “The coronavirus has already been more effective in reducing CO2 emissions and slowing down climate breakdown than all the world’s policy initiatives combined.”
The result of these climate improvements is not to seek to end all human endeavors—but it does bring a taste of hope and a possible future. It demonstrates that humans are capable of rising to the occasion. “We know now that the world is able to respond with urgency and coherence once the political will has been aroused.” Thus with the current emergency “Gaia has presented us with valuable, life-saving lessons. The question is: Will humanity heed these lessons?”
It would seem that the science of today and the wisdom of yesteryear might link up to arouse humanity from folly to wisdom. If so, we would, once again, have Gaia to thank.
This article was written before the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath. But COVID-19 raises questions apropos of this essay, such as why are so many more blacks than whites dying of COVID-19? And why has unemployment surged more among black and brown communities than white ones, etc.
~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
Read online hereAbout the Author
Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship (called The Cosmic Mass). His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society; A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey; Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times; Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest; Stations of the Cosmic Christ; Order of the Sacred Earth; and Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Name for God...Including the Unnameable God. To encourage a passionate response to the news of climate change advancing so rapidly, Fox started Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox - See Welcome from Matthew Fox. [1] Cited in Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations (Novato, Ca: New World Library, 2011), # 365.[2] Ibid., # 203.[3] https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/the-covid-19-pandemic-a-systemic-analysis/?u… |
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Question & Answer
Q: By Jeff
I'm a politically blue kind of guy living in a very red state. My religious convictions tell me that I have to try to work at getting laws that treat everyone with love. I've always tried, but the last few years it's been crazy hard and I'm wearing out. Any suggestions?
A: By Rev. Mark Sandlin
Hi Jeff,You ask a question that resonates with something I think many of us are feeling: resistance fatigue. Spiritually, it is important that we continue to work towards a world that has more mercy, empathy, hospitality, and love. The reality is that when so many powerful folks are working in the opposite direction, it really can wear you down – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So, good self care is important. This list is certainly not complete, but it's not a bad place to start.
- Don't try to take on all the issues at once. Pick one (or maybe two). If there is anything that will absolutely wear a person out it's trying to handle too many things all at once – burning the candle from both ends. A key to not feeling resistance fatigue is to sort of specialize in an area that you feel very strongly about.
- Play to your strengths. If you are an organizer, organize. If you are a writer, write. Learning new skill sets is a beautiful thing, but what will be the most helpful in this effort is each person doing the thing (or things) they are the best at.
- Don't just engage with everyone who wants to engage with you. Be selective.
- Take regular breaks from social media and the news. We live in an age of not only instant information, but constant information. Our brains are not wired in a way that makes the constant input of that kind of information healthy. It will eventually overwhelm us. Just like studies have show, students learn more when studying if they take frequent breaks - we are more capable of not burning out when we take a mental health break from all of it. Do a little bit of personal care.
- When needed, take some downtime. Do nothing about the issue. Do things that feed you. The answer to solving any of this does not rest on the shoulders of one person.
- Lovingly persist.
~ Rev. Mark Sandlin
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Study of Life, Part 2: Exploring the Drive to
Survive in Animate Life and in Self-Conscious Life
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
August 6, 2009As I said in last week’s column, in that wonderful lull in the life of an author that occurs between the time the book goes to press and the time it is published, we decided to go on a trip to study life itself. Before one can speak about life after death, as I seek to do in this new book, one has to understand the meaning of life before death. We retraced Charles Darwin’s pilgrimage to the Galapagos Islands with a side trip to the Amazon Rainforest. I wanted to think about what it means to be alive. Last week I looked at insights gained in the rain forest about the apparent drive to survive that appears to be present in every form of vegetation. We discovered examples of this at almost every turn as we tramped that beautiful and sparsely populated part of the world. Our observations about the drive for survival as an aspect of living things did not stop, however, at the limits of plant life.
We found the same principle operating in every form of animate life from insects to animals in which consciousness has both appeared and developed. This survival instinct, as it might be called, is not the product of rational thinking. One does not attribute that quality to ants or to wasps, to spiders or to bees or even to the higher mammals, but it is present in all of these forms of life no matter where we looked.
We saw many spider webs in the rain forest. They were spun in community, not by individual spiders, requiring great cooperation, and the food trapped therein was shared equally by the members of the spider community. A social contract was operating in the insect world. We also noted alliances formed between species in the insect world that help both species in the struggle to survive. It is a common observation in the rain forest, for example, that one variety of ants builds nests in the same trees where hives of wasps are located. This tactic serves both species. These ants serve to protect the wasps from another species of ants called “army ants” that are mortal enemies of the wasps. Army ants seek out and consume the larvae of the wasps while still in the hives. They are immune to the sting of the wasp and invade the hive easily, as they are quite adept at climbing even the tallest of trees. Army ants, however, will, not pass the nest of the other ants, which are always lower in the tree than the hives of the wasps. These ants frighten the army ants away with crunching sounds of marching insects, so with this help the wasp larvae are able to survive for another generation. The wasps, on the other hand, attack with stinging efficiency the principle enemy of these cooperative ants: the anteaters. The anteaters are able to climb the tree to feast on the ants’ nests, but are driven off by the wasps, thus saving the ants. The alliance serves as a mutual survival technique. It is one more remarkable natural fact that reveals how deeply the drive to survive is in all life forms.
We saw another incredible adaptation tactic in the Amazon Rainforest in a bird called Hoatzin. This bird, a rarity of nature since it is a vegetarian, feeds only on the leaves of the forest. There are no worms or insects in the diet of this creature. To accommodate this vegetarian diet, the digestive system of the Hoatzin is dramatically different from the digestive system of all other birds. The stomach of the Hoatzin resembles the stomach of a cow, which is also a vegetarian. Both of their stomachs are divided into chambers that allow the eaten leaves to ferment and thus be changed into energy and nutrients for the sustenance of life. It seems that when other sources of food became unavailable for this unique bird, the drive to survive expressed itself in this unusual evolutionary development.
The most dramatic example of this survival adaptation in the Amazon Rainforest had to do with parrots and parakeets. Their source of food is tropical fruit, and most of the nutriments in these fruits derive from the seeds. In the plants’ own drive to survive, however, the seeds are toxic to discourage their destruction by the parrots. If the parrots eat the nutritious seeds of these fruits, they die of the toxins. If they do not eat these toxic seeds, they will perish from insufficient food. It was not until the 1990’s that a Peruvian scientist discovered the adaptation that these parrots and parakeets have made to overcome this serious problem. Throughout the Amazon Rainforest there are places now called “parrot clay licks.” The parrots visit these spots by the thousands each day and lick the clay, which contains anti-toxins that enable them to eat the nutritious seeds of the fruit without ill effects. It is to the parrots like taking Alka Seltzer before one develops indigestion. We went to one of the accessible clay licks near the water’s edge of the Napo River, about a hundred yards’ walk from our boat, and took our seats in an open shed where we could see the clay licks at the foot of a tree-covered hill without disturbing the parrots prior to their descent. The day unfolded like a liturgical dance. The forest was alive with the chatter of the parrots, but the clay lick was still empty of their presence. Sentry parrots flew above searching for predators and sending a warning if any appeared. Meanwhile, flocks of parrots slowly descended the hillside, coming ever closer to the empty clay lick. This ritual lasted for almost an hour as these birds dropped lower and lower in the trees and then flew away, only to return to a yet nearer position. Finally, one of these green-feathered creatures would break the barrier and land in the clay lick and begin to consume the anti-toxins in the clay. Slowly others would join until the clay lick was filled with hundreds of green parakeets demanding to eat their fill of anti-toxins. From time to time, a warning sound would come from the flying sentries and there would be a rapid and mass evacuation of these creatures, not just from the clay licks but also from every level of the forest by those waiting their turn at the clay lick. It was like watching the pilots of the RAF take off in their planes in wave after wave to confront the Nazi bombers during the World War II Battle of Britain. We watched on at least three occasions when literally thousands of parakeets took off to avoid danger. Then the “all clear” signal would come from the sentries and the parakeets would return, again filling the empty clay lick with a blanket of green until all the parakeets had consumed their daily requirement of anti-toxins and went off in search of the toxic seeds in the fruits that sustained their lives. The elaborate forms that the drive to survive seems to take in the world of nature is truly amazing. Deep in the heart of all living things, perhaps in the DNA of life itself, we discover that the drive to survive is present. This is true despite the fact that every living thing is actually in the food chain of every other living thing. Nature’s clear message is that all living things are hard wired to survive.
This same principle is also seen in higher forms of life where consciousness is advanced. There is the herd instinct that enables the species to survive even if an individual member of the species is sacrificed. We are all familiar with the fight or flight syndrome in the animal kingdom. A predator appears. The herd flees. The predator cuts out his desired prey from the flock and their one-on-one flight takes place. When the intended victim can run no more, it turns to face its tormentor in one last stand at life. With whatever form resistance takes, from arched back to hissing sounds, from an attempt to delay the pounce with claws or hooves, the struggle for survival comes before the kill. When flight ends, fight begins. Meanwhile, with the sacrifice of this victim to feed the hunger of the predator, the flock ceases its flight and grazes peacefully nearby, knowing that the predator’s hunger is satisfied for the immediate future. Recent zoological studies have indicated that flocks are even organized in such a way as to place the older and therefore less productive members of the flock in the most vulnerable positions in the herd, making them the likely prey of the predator. Thus the older animals are sacrificed for the longevity of the species. Survival is a force in life that appears to drive all living things. So our search for the meaning of life arrives at its first conclusion. There is something about life in both its plant and animal forms that is driven by survival. It is not a conscious choice, for plants do not think or plan, and yet survival motivates all vegetative forms of life. It is not a rational thinking process for animals do not think abstractly or plan ahead for future contingencies. It is a natural response found in all living things. It is part of what it means to be alive.
To our knowledge only one living creature, the human being, is conscious of the fact of its inevitable death. In this single creature this universal drive to survive becomes self-conscious. This creature alone knows in advance that he or she is mortal and that no matter how deep in nature the drive to survive might be, only the human being is aware that he or she will lose the battle for life. How will that drive then express itself in the self-conscious creature? Is the human yearning for life after death, which appears to mark all human life from the earliest dawning of self-consciousness, anything more that a sign of this universal will to survive? On the other hand is the human discovery of the oneness and interdependence of all life, the dawning awareness that we are part of something not bound by our limitations, perhaps not even bound by our mortality? Is self-consciousness the doorway into God? Does this insight open us to the possibility that evolution is a journey not just into life and consciousness, but also into transcendence, oneness and even eternity? That is the pathway that I will explore in this book.
We moved next to the Galapagos Islands to follow Darwin’s discovery of evolution. Before making that journey, however, we had a chance to meet and engage briefly with a shaman of one of the tribes indigenous to the rain forest. Because this was the first time I had ever had the opportunity to listen to a shaman’s view of life, and because he offered me the opportunity to enter the religious worldview of animism, it seems worth still following my thought about the evolution of religion in human society to share that story with you. To that I will turn next week.~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
Now more than ever we need an antiracist movement in our country. Each of us has the power to change white supremacy’s toxic legacy.
Join Rev. Lewis for a special two-part Master Class, The Call of This Moment: An Anti-Racism Workshop, because so many of our societal ills stem from unexamined racism. Jacqui will lead participants through an exploration of the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of race, racism, privilege and implicit/explicit bias in culture, in our lives and in the organizations to which we belong. Read On... |
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An ICA Tribute to John Gibson
The Ecumenical Institute (EI) and (ICA) Institute of Cultural Affairs exist
today because of dedicated people who decided to live their lives on behalf
of something bigger than themselves. Individuals who decided to operate out
of a different value system than the world was accustomed to, and who
demonstrated with their lives that that which seemed impossible, was in
fact, possible.
Today we celebrate the life of John Gibson who for 37 years was deeply
involved in the life and work of the Institute. In 1966 Joseph Mathews,
Dean of the Ecumenical Institute was the keynote speaker at the Pastor
School in South Dakota. Mathew’s vision of a renewed church as the catalyst
for healing the world, spoke to John, which motivated him to attend a
Pastoral Leadership Colloquy at the Institute’s westside Chicago campus.
Soon after, the Church leaders in Rapid City invited EI to conduct an RS-1
course, and out of that inaugural course the Local Church Experiment in
Rapid City started in 1970.
In 1973 John and Anita participated in the Institute’s Global Odyssey that
circled the earth to study the cultures of the world. Shortly thereafter,
their Bishop, James Armstrong, appointed John to work with EI so Anita and
John joined the EI staff. They were deployed to start a Religious House in
Green Bay, Wisconsin. In the region they worked on The Bicentennial Town
Meeting Campaign, and LENS (Living Effectively in a New Society) designed
to help government agencies and corporations grow cultures of participation.
In 1977 Anita and John and their children, were deployed to Malaysia to
coordinate a social and economic reconstruction project at Sungai Lui, a
small village about 20 miles from the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Anita
started a pre-school and ran the Well-baby Clinic. John did a gravity-fed
water system and worked in training and collective village planning.
In 1980, the Gibsons came back to Indianapolis, Indiana where Anita helped
start Training, Inc and John coordinated ICA programs in Kentucky, Ohio and
Indiana. John became very involved on neighborhood boards and citywide
boards. After John left the Institute in 1999, he ran as an independent
candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis and became the co- founder of Earth
Charter Indiana serving as an executive Director from 2003 to 2011.
The question the ICA posed to John over 37 years ago, was ‘What will you DO
with your unique and unrepeatable life’, and we can see John’s answer
clearly through his mission and work. And I bet, John would like nothing
more than for us all to ponder, what will we do with our unique and
unrepeatable life, and how are we willing to actively, not passively -make
the change we know the world so desperately needs.
In the face of great loss, no words convey the sadness we feel for those
who loved John Gibson. Yet we dare to say Death is neither a curse nor a
blessing, an end or a beginning, but only that it is a wondrous,
frightening and redemptive reality. It is a step into the Unknown Unknown.
It is sacred, and it is good
--
Richard H. T. Alton
One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF)
Green Community Connections
Interfaith Green Network
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton(a)gmail.com
**Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March *
http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org
Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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