November 2012 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

11/08/12, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction
by Ellie Stock 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and second on the presumed appearances of his mother at the foot of the cross. Take those two traditions away from the New Testament and the mother of Jesus almost totally disappears. Indeed, what remains is mostly negative. She is portrayed in Mark (chapters 3 and 6) as thinking that Jesus was “beside himself,” that is “out of his mind” and she, along with his brothers, moves to “put him away.” He had, this story implies, become an embarrassment to the family. In the Fourth Gospel, in the narrative of the water being changed into wine, the mother of Jesus is portrayed as inappropriately pushing Jesus to act and she receives from him the rebuke, “Woman, what have you to do with me, my hour has not yet come?” She is also not present at the cross in the writings of Paul or in any of the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew or Luke. Only with the appearance of the Fourth Gospel at the end of the first century did anyone think to portray her at the foot of the cross. These biblical facts force us to recognize that most of the ideas we have about the mother of Jesus are late developing myths that make assumptions the Bible does not make. The birth stories are found first in Matthew, the dating of which is generally between 82 and 85, and second in Luke, which is generally thought to have been written about a decade after Matthew. This means that the New Testament’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are both products of a time 52-65 years after the life of Jesus came to its earthly end and some 82-95 years after the time of his birth. This is not eye witness reporting. Clearly the tradition that was built around the mother of Jesus is both late developing and continues to grow with the passing of years. Once the time of the writing of the New Testament has passed, however, the mythology that developed around the mother of Jesus apparently knew no bounds. The virgin mother of the birth narratives became in successive generations, first, the permanent virgin, thus redefining Jesus’ siblings, referred to by name in both Galatians and in Mark, and referred to in John simply as “his brothers,” as half brothers or cousins. Next she was declared to have been a “post-partum” virgin, which suggested that even the birth of Jesus did not disturb her virginal hymen. In the service of that idea the “Fathers” of the church even searched the scriptures for biblical texts that would support this growing conviction. They settled on two. First, they looked at the writings of a sixth century BCE prophet named Ezekiel, who in the first verse of the 44th chapter wrote these words: “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” Without either apology or embarrassment, they leaped on these words to claim that the “post partum virginity” of the “Blessed Virgin Mary” had actually been predicted by the prophets! The second text was found in the resurrection story according to the Fourth Gospel. In that narrative the disciples were in hiding in an upper room with the doors and the windows closed and locked and Jesus came and stood in their midst. If the risen Christ could pass through walls guarded by locked doors, they argued, it was no great stretch to imagine the infant Christ passing through the birth canal of his mother without breaking the hymen. Mythology always does strange things to facts and to reality. By the 19th century, devotion to the mother of Jesus became so strong that the Roman Catholic Church, in which this devotion was most encouraged, declared that she, unlike all other human beings, had been “immaculately conceived.” That is, her mother had been miraculously cleansed of the sin of Adam, which was believed to have infected all human beings and to have been passed on from generation to generation. For Jesus to have been born without sin, his mother would have to have been especially prepared for this birth. This necessity also reflected the fact that in the early years of the 18th century, the discovery had been made that women have an egg cell and therefore that the woman literally contributes half of the genetic makeup of every person who has ever been born. Prior to this the assumption was that the woman simply provided the womb that nurtured the male seed to maturity. Like “Mother Earth” into which the farmer planted the seed, the woman’s role had been seen as simply to bring to birth the life that came from the male. When the egg cell was discovered, the realization dawned on the leadership of the church that the mother of Jesus was, like all women and indeed like all people, a child of Adam and so the sinlessness of Jesus was compromised through his mother’s line. That had not been a problem in the old view of reproduction. The Immaculate Conception addressed that theological problem demonstrating once and for all that even “infallible” doctrines are forced to adjust to new discoveries. The final chapter in the mythological development of the mother of Jesus came in the 20th century when Mary was declared to have been bodily assumed into heaven. Since she was born without sin, she was not required to go through the passage of death, since death, according to the story of the Garden of Eden, was punishment for sin. Carl Jung rejoiced in the Vatican’s declaration of the bodily assumption of the mother of Jesus into heaven because in his world of symbols this meant that the feminine had finally been lifted into God and the patriarchal tyranny of a God conceived of in only masculine terms and always addressed as “Father” had finally been tempered. In this new series of columns over the next few months, I want, first, to get underneath the mythology of the ages and second, the development found in the New Testament itself, so that we can look at Jesus, the mother of Jesus and the entire Christian story with a set of eyes honed by scholarship and tempered by the facts of history as we can demonstrate them. I trust it will be an illuminating and worthwhile story for my readers. If the familiar biblical images of the mother of Jesus are late developing, what do we have that is original and perhaps trustworthy? That is the question we will address as this series unfolds. I begin with some statements of fact that I will pursue in detail going into each of them deeply before any conclusions are reached, probably some time in February. For now, I simply file them as bullet points for your consideration. As the Book of Common Prayer in my church states these bullet points are designed to be “read, marked, learned and inwardly digested.” This series will provide the time to do just that. We can now date the life of Jesus with some degree of accuracy. Recent discoveries have made it possible to fix the life of Jesus between the years of 4 BCE and 30 CE. We get to these dates first by the discovery in ancient Roman records that King Herod died in 4 BCE and since the clear New Testament tradition is that Jesus was born when Herod was the king so we fix the date of Jesus birth at 4 BCE. Second, we learn, once more from secular records, that Pilate was the procurator of Judea for the Roman Empire between the years 26-36 CE. If, as each of the gospels asserts, the crucifixion occurred under the authority of Pilate, then the crucifixion has to happen some time between those dates. Roman records also provide us with some other facts in the life of Pilate that have to do with the reasons for his removal from office. Since they appear to have happened well after the crucifixion we can squeeze those dates a bit closer to perhaps 28-32 as the time of the crucifixion. We then split the difference and settle on 30, with the knowledge that we might be off two years in either direction. So for our working purposes, we set the life of Jesus between 4 BC and 30 CE. We have nothing preserved in writing anywhere of anything concerning the life of Jesus before the year 51 CE. That is a silent and dark historical tunnel, which can be illumined only by speculation. It is filled in only by what we call “the oral tradition” that we have almost no way of recreating, entering or capturing. Paul the first writer, whose work was destined to be included in the New Testament, did all of his writing between the years 51 and 64. Not all of the epistles attributed to Paul are authentically from his hand. The ones about whom a consensus of the certainty of Pauline authorship exists are I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians. This means that II Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus and Hebrews are not considered to be from the hand of Paul. Nowhere in any part of the authentic Pauline corpus is there a reference of any kind to the birth of Jesus, nor is there any mention of the mother or father of Jesus. There are in Paul, however, several references, mostly in Galatians, to James, the brother of the Lord. Our study of the birth of Jesus will therefore start with Paul, the earliest writer in the New Testament. That means that we will start our investigation in the sixth and seventh decades of the Christian era. I hope that whets your appetite. We will continue the drama in subsequent columns. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Ed Branthaver, via the Internet, writes: Question: You have been a long time favorite author of mine ever since I read Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. I have every one of your books in my personal library. I grew up in the tradition of a liberal Church of the Brethren to which I still hold some loyalty. However, in all my years, I was never able to understand much of the biblical language or teachings. I was in my 60th year before I discovered you and your writings. Let me say you are the first person who has helped me understand what for a long time has confused me. Recently, I came across a small book by Anthony Freeman, God in Us. He claims that his use of the term God (instead of referring to a supernatural being) refers to the sum of all values and ideals in life: Positive values like goodness, love, knowledge, wisdom, power (used rightly), etc. and negative values like freedom for the fear and tyranny of death, of suffering, etc. He says, “Do you believe in God? is like asking “How long is a piece of string? Just tell me what sort of God you have in mind and I will tell you whether I believe in him (her, it.)” He labels his philosophy, Christian Humanism, and his call to “radical insecurity” which carries an element of uncertainty, sure sounds a lot like your recent call to “Think Different, Accept Uncertainty.” Could you call the New Christianity for a New World Christian Humanism? Answer: Dear Ed, I have known and admired Anthony Freeman for a long time. He was an Anglican priest until the Anglican hierarchy decided that his view of God was not sufficient for him to represent that church as one of its ordained servants. I would never have made such a judgment. No person’s view of God is the same as God! I’m not at all sure that the view of God reflected in those Anglican hierarchical figures is a view of God that is sufficient for them to remain in their respective positions of authority either. They simply validate tradition while Anthony has challenged the adequacy of that tradition. Only time will tell which attitude is closer to the truth and history has consistently shown that those who stand outside the traditional theological lines are harbingers of the future majority. Does this mean that I believe that Anthony’s view of God is complete? No, but neither is the view of his hierarchical theological judges or my view of God. What ecclesiastical heresy hunters never understand is no human mind and no religious tradition can ever fully embrace or express the truth of God in any human words or in any established doctrines and dogmas of any church. Churches are always pretending that they possess the ultimate truth of God. I think that is nothing short of idolatry. I believe I experience God and I can talk about my experience. I do not believe I can define God, nor do I believe anyone else can. I find the phrase Christian Humanism to be an appealing one. The opposite of humanism is not the lack of or the inability to embrace the reality of a supernatural deity. The opposite of humanism is to be inhumane! I think Jesus is about expanded life and expanded consciousness; about calling us into the fullness of lour humanity. Humanism shares that goal, but would probably not embrace my definition. Humanism is thus not my enemy, but my ally. I think of myself as a Christian Humanist, but I want both of these words to carry equal weight. I hope this helps. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements 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 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account. Sent to elliestock(a)aol.com — why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences ProgressiveChristianity.org · 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. · Unit 1 · Portland, OR 97214

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Re: [Oe List ...] The Global Film
by David Walters 11 Dec '12

11 Dec '12

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11/29/12, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part III. The Testimony of Mark, the Earliest Gospel
by Ellie Stock 29 Nov '12

29 Nov '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part III. The Testimony of Mark, the Earliest Gospel The first gospel to be written, the one we call Mark, was composed in the early years of the 8th decade (70-72). It contains no story of and no reference to the birth of Jesus. To explain this omission, there are only two possibilities: Either the author of Mark had never heard about the birth tradition because it had not yet been created or he knew about it and deemed it unworthy of inclusion. For a number of reasons the first of these two alternatives is generally agreed to be the overwhelming probability. First of all, it is not just an argument from silence. There are a number of episodes in the corpus of Mark’s gospel that would have been either impossible or incomprehensible, if he had been aware of a miraculous birth tradition. I will look at three of them. In the first chapter of this gospel we find the familiar story of Jesus coming to John the Baptist to be baptized. The preamble to this episode is not a birth story or a childhood story, but a reference to the fact that Jesus was believed to be the fulfillment of the hopes and the writings of the prophets. Mark builds this case by quoting Malachi 3:1 and II Isaiah 40:3, although he only acknowledges his dependence on Isaiah in the text. Then he launches into a description of John the Baptist that is developed in such a way as to identify him with the prophet Elijah. Mark describes John the Baptist as wearing the clothing of Elijah, a man of the desert, and portrays him as eating Elijah’s diet of locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6-7 and II Kings1:8). By turning John the Baptist into an Elijah-like figure, Mark was playing to the messianic images that suggested that Elijah must come first to prepare the way for the messiah. John the Baptist has thus been co-opted by Mark to play this role in the first gospel to appear in writing. This is not history. This is interpretive portrait painting, but the synagogue audience for which Mark was writing would immediately understand the symbols he was employing. Next, in the first act that Mark attributes to Jesus, he is baptized by John in the Jordan River. There is nothing about this gospel’s first mention of Jesus to suggest that he was different or supernatural because of some aspect of his birth. He was pictured simply as an adult, a fully human male. Mark employed the custom of that day, by introducing Jesus by name followed by his home town. If any further identification was needed, Mark would have said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of _____ ” and then named his father. That was not deemed necessary for Mark’s introduction. Indeed, the father of Jesus, whether human or divine, is never mentioned in this gospel. It is only in this account of his baptism that the first supernatural references are mentioned by this writer. First, he said, the heavens opened. The sky was thought of as a dome that separated the realm of God above from the realm of human life below. In the creation story, which would have been quite familiar to Mark’s Jewish audience (Genesis 1:6), the sky was called “the firmament” and was supposed to have served to separate “the waters above from the waters below.” The heavenly waters that fell from the sky as rain formed the earthly waters that became the oceans, rivers and streams. In time, that heavenly water came to be identified with the Holy Spirit. So in this narrative the heavens opened to the dwelling place of God and the Spirit descended from God to fall on Jesus like a dove. Then a voice from heaven rang out across the earth proclaiming Jesus to be God’s “beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Once again in the use of these words, texts from the Hebrew Scriptures were in the mind of the writer of this gospel. II Isaiah (Isa. 40-55) had God refer to the “suffering servant” of his narrative as “My chosen in whom my soul delights” (Is. 42:1) and the Psalter has God refer to the Lord’s anointed as, “You are my son, today have I begotten you” (Ps. 7:2). The Spirit does not come on Jesus just for a season, but has come to dwell on him permanently, so that he becomes a God-infused human life. The Holy Spirit was not the male agent in conception as the later birth narratives would assert. The Holy Spirit dropped from heaven on the fully human adult Jesus at this baptism to indwell him in an ongoing manner. This was Mark’s way of explaining the source of the divine presence that was found in Jesus. Had he known about the virgin birth tradition, Mark’s explanation of the coming of the Spirit to dwell permanently in him would not have been necessary. The later developing supernatural story of Jesus’ miraculous birth had clearly not yet been thought of or composed by anyone. The second Marcan episode that reveals that he had never heard of the story of the virgin birth comes in chapter 3. Jesus, we are told, has broken onto the public scene in a series of rapid-fire activities. He had chosen some disciples; astonished a congregation at Capernaum with his teaching in a synagogue; healed a man with an “unclean spirit,” who then with supernatural insight, recognized Jesus’ divine presence; healed Peter’s mother-in-law; cast out demons and healed the sick of an entire city; cleansed a leper; healed a paralytic; called Levi from his tax collecting trade into discipleship; distinguished himself from John the Baptist; violated the Sabbath by picking and eating grain in the fields; proclaimed himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” and, finally, in the synagogue on the Sabbath healed a man with a withered hand (see chapters 2 and 3). This Sabbath healing was not an emergency act, which would have made it legitimate, since the hand would still be withered on the day after the Sabbath, so it was a calculated Sabbath violation. All of these provocative acts brought immediate public notice. Then Jesus went home to Nazareth and his family began to hear of these things. They were not pleased, Mark says, “They went out to seize him, for all the people were saying, ‘He is beside himself’” (Mark 3:20-21). This is the first biblical mention of the family of Jesus, other than Paul’s reference to James as “the brother of the Lord” in Galatians. It is not, however, until the end of this chapter that the family of Jesus is defined. Thinking him mentally disturbed, which is what the words “beside himself” mean, Mark tells us that “Jesus’ mother and his brothers came to where he was.” Standing outside the crowd, they sent a message to him asking him to come out. When informed of their presence, Jesus not only declined to accede to their wishes, but he also redefined his kinship to them. Whoever does “the will of God, he said, “is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Note first that the mother of Jesus thinks him mentally disturbed. That is not the behavior of one to whom an angel might have appeared to tell her she would be the mother of the messiah. One does not receive that divine message prior to a child’s birth and then think he has gone out of his mind when he reaches his adult life. No, when Mark wrote this gospel he had not heard of the tradition that Jesus had a supernatural birth because it had not yet been created. The final Marcan episode that makes it clear that the birth narrative of Jesus was not part of the original Christian tradition, but a late-developing addition to the story, comes in the sixth chapter of Mark. Jesus had returned to his home in Nazareth from a series of adventures described in chapters 4 and 5, which included casting the legion of demons out of a demented man and allowing these demons to enter a herd of swine, causing a stampede that resulted in the drowning of that herd in the Sea of Galilee; raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead, and healing the woman with the chronic menstrual flow. The author of this gospel clearly meant to suggest that the people were talking of his power and wondering about its source. At this point, Mark says, Jesus entered his synagogue and created astonishment at his teaching. The people, who had been his neighbors, could not believe what they were hearing. So Mark had an anonymous member of that crowd ask this question: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us” (Mark 6:3-4)? Please note the following things about this passage. First, this is the first time in the Christian story that the role of the carpenter has been mentioned and it is Jesus who is the carpenter, not Joseph, who is cast in that role. That will change when we come to Matthew a decade later when the shift is made. Second, this is also the first and only time in Mark that we hear that “Mary” is the name of Jesus’ mother. Third, there is no mention of a father in this family. In addition to his mother four brothers are named and the plural word “sisters” is used, indicating that there was more than one. Finally, be aware that for an anonymous voice in the crowd to call a grown man named Jesus, “the son of Mary,” was pejorative in Jewish society. One did not call a mature man the “son of a woman” unless his paternity was suspect. This phrase meant that his father was unknown. It thus suggested that Jesus was “base born” or illegitimate. Rumors to this effect were clearly beginning to swirl around Jesus and echoes of these charges can be found in the other gospels. These rumors would in time create the necessity for developing the virgin birth tradition, but that time had not yet come It is thus clear that the first gospel writer, Mark, had never heard of the virgin birth. When Mark was written over forty years had passed since the crucifixion and some seventy years had passed since the birth of Jesus. Mythological traditions build slowly. The story of the virgin birth of Jesus is one of these mythological traditions. We will pursue this study in subsequent weeks as this series continues. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Ann Tansey Virginia Beach, Va. Question: You have been a blessing to me as I have struggled all my life with the teachings of mainstream Christianity. I once wondered if I was Jewish because I just could not feel connected to the traditional Jesus. I also couldn’t grasp at all the “stories” about miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, etc. I am now reading Jesus for the Non-Religious and have sent a copy to my 35-year old daughter who has been struggling as well. I do have some questions I would like to ask you. Praying with words is difficult for me. How do I pray and does it work? Why did Jesus have to die to get his message across? What do you think of Baptism and Eucharist? I wish I could spend a day with you to get more clarity on my unsettled-ness but I have resigned myself to the fact that I will have to listen to you through your books! I hope you do not mind if I contact you now and again with a question or two to help clarify some things. Thank you for speaking out and helping so many people who find the teachings of the established Church hard to believe and a roadblock to an understanding of the REAL Jesus. Answer: Dear Ann, Thank you for your letter and for your kind words. Several years ago I did a series of lectures at Eastern Shore Chapel in Virginia Beach. That experience makes me aware that you are not alone in your response. The questions you ask are all worthy, but they are far too complex to be reduced to a few lines in a question and answer column. The subject of prayer is one that almost always comes up first when people begin to raise their consciousness about whether or not the portrait of God as a heavenly parent figure or even a punishing judge begins to be challenged. It is not prayer that is usually the problem, but rather our infantile understanding of it. In regard to the death of Jesus, the way you ask the question indicates that you are still in the power of that old adage that somehow the only way God could forgive us was for Jesus to die. “Jesus died for my sins” has become an almost irrational mantra that we repeat as if it still makes sense. It doesn’t. In my book to which you have referred, Jesus for the Non-Religious, I offer a very different perspective and in sufficient detail that so brief a response through this “question fore mat” could never match. Baptism and Eucharist were originally a version of the Jewish Ceremonial Bath and the Passover simply transformed for Christian use. Baptism was the rite of institution that brought the person officially into the Christian community and the Eucharist was the common meal of the community which was thought to renew and sustain each member’s identity. Throughout Christian history, a variety of interpretations has been laid on both of these rites, some of which violated everything we know about Jesus. (The unbaptized child is doomed said the Church during parts of its history. “Come unto me all ye!” said the Jesus of the Gospel) The Eucharist has been interpreted in some eras of history as if it is a cannibalistic rite in which the flesh of Jesus is literally eaten and his blood literally drunk. I don’t believe it is possible to be fully human alone and being Christian is about being fully human. So I welcome these rites that bind me to my community of faith. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements ProgressiveChristianity.org is in the process of creating A Joyful Path, Year Two- Progressive Christian Spiritual Children's Curriculum. 38 lessons broken down into 8 sections all about the foundations of Progressive Christianity. Click here or on the image below for more information. "I endorse it whole-heartedly!" Bishop Spong Please consider donating now to keep this project going. A Joyful Path, Year Two will be available to pre-order in the Spring of 2013. For information on A Joyful Path, Year One, which is available now, click here. 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 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Dorothy Day and Joe Mathews on the Same Track
by R Williams 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Friends and Colleagues, One of Joe's quotes, I think from the RS-1 Church Lecture, which many of you may have used from time to time, as I have, to express your frustration with the church, was "The church is a whore but she's my mother." Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, would have been 115 years old this month. The Catholic Church is currently in the process of canonizing her. Today I ran across an article which she wrote and published in The Catholic Worker in January of 1967 entitled "In Peace Is My Bitterness Most Bitter." In this article she is chastising some of those in the church who, among other things, had called for a "total" U.S. victory in the Viet Nam War. In that article I discovered this quote from Dorothy Day. "As to the Church... Though she is a harlot at times, she is our Mother." (Joe may well have placed the comma after the word "harlot.") Having imagined all these years that this was one of the more brazen statements Joe Mathews ever uttered, I was amazed to run across the same statement, from about that same time, from a Catholic nun. I'm not sure why this struck me as such an interesting discovery. Perhaps it is that, as I continue in the midst of my life-long love/hate relationship with institutional Christianity, I found new justification that it is a struggle worth having. Whether Joe got the quote from Dorothy Day or vice versa, or whether it was a case of two great minds using the same analogy, I thought it worth sharing with you. If anyone knows more about the history of this statement, I would interested to hear. Be well, Randy "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley

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Thanksgiving Reflection
by Rod Rippel 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Someone posted the Mayflower Compact with the comments by Thomas Berry a while back. I remember it and added a few reflections. Rod Rippel THANKSGIVING REFLECTION Most of our holidays in the US come to us as imports from The Old World, being taken from the Christian liturgical calendar. The Church, in turn, took them from older Pagan cultures and transformed them into Holy Days celebrated throughout Christendom. Of our own holidays, only two are uniquely American, those being Independence Day and Thanksgiving. A feast seems entirely appropriate for a celebration of giving thanks. The traditional servings at Thanksgiving include foods which are originally from America, not found in the Old world. These include corn, potatoes and, of course, turkey (a bird once nominated to be our National Symbol by Benjamin Franklin). Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863, when, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise…to God.” Lincoln designated Thursday, November 26, to be celebrated as a national holiday. In the mythology of the country, Thanksgiving is often connected to the feast celebrated by the Pilgrims and Indians in the Plymouth colony in 1621. That feast lasted for three days and was attended by approximately 50 Pilgrims and 90 indigenous Americans. I imagine the Native Americans supplied the corn (and perhaps the turkeys) while the Colonists saw to it that there was plenty of beer (an Old World beverage) to last the three days. Even then, excess was a mark of thanksgiving feasts; a tradition we continue to observe. I’m intrigued by the various connections between the Old World and the New when it comes to our Thanksgiving Holiday celebration. How would such a tenuous connection be symbolized meaningfully in our current feasting? And what of the contributions of the Indigenous Americans to our current practice of Thanksgiving? What are they and how would we symbolize those connections today? Of course we are highly conscious of the Colonists’ contributions for which we give thanks, their Faith and civic traditions, their social customs, history and learning. But what vestiges, if any, of the cultures and learning’s of Native Peoples of America have survived or retained in our current holiday? Not much. When I was a member of the Order:Ecumenical in the late 60’s we would symbolize the roots of Thanksgiving in particular and US civic development in general by having someone read out loud The Mayflower Compact at our Thanksgiving meal. This would be followed by a corporate conversation led by one member on the blessings (and failings) of the ‘civil body politic’ since those earlier times. These were always meaningful and sobering conversations. Here’s the Compact: IN THE name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the 11 of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domine 1620. (A Side Note: The Pilgrims, having spent some time in liberal Holland, before going to Great Britain, do not appear to be too enamored of the Trinity!) (2nd Side Note: Such a reading at the Thanksgiving Table shifts the meaning of Thanksgiving itself away from simply being a meal with Thanks, but towards the corporate blessings bestowed by our ‘civil body politic,’ and introduces the possible notes of repentance and forgiveness). SOMETHING TO ‘CHEW ON’ WHEN WE CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING Thomas Berry in his book, The Great Work, juxtaposes the culture of the American Indians and that of the Europeans settlers. The arrival of the Europeans in North America, he says, “could be considered as one of the more fateful moments in history, not only of this continent but of the entire planet…. Every living being on this continent might have shuddered with foreboding when that first tiny sail appeared over the Atlantic horizon.” The aboriginal peoples of North America and the European settlers held two sharply contending views of nature. “To indigenous people…the natural world was the manifestation of a numinous presence that gave meaning to all existence…. As seen by the Europeans the continent was here to serve human purposes though trade and commerce, as well as through the more immediate personal and household needs of the colonists. They had nothing spiritual to learn from this continent. Their attitude toward the land as primarily for use was the critical issue” Culturally derived beliefs about the role of humans in the world caused insuperable difficulty for the Europeans in establishing any intimate rapport with the North American continent or its people. According to Thomas, “Such orientation of Western consciousness had its fourfold origin in the Greek [humanistic] cultural tradition, the biblical-Christian religious tradition, the English political-legal tradition, and the economic tradition associated with the new vigor of the merchant class.” To the Europeans “Their human-spiritual formation was complete before they came. They came, [they thought,] with the finest religion of the world, the highest intellectual, aesthetic, and moral development, the finest jurisprudence. They needed this continent simply as a political refuge and as a region to be exploited.” They were committed to a “divinely commissioned task of commercially exploiting this continent [and] could even experience a high spiritual exaltation in what [they] were doing.” Only now, after 3000 years of hearing the Judeo Christian imperative of “Be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion over all its creatures” are we turning our ears to the suffering of nature and our planet. We see how lonely it will be without our fellow-creatures who are being lost as a result of our selfishness. How our action and exploitation is spoiling the only nest we have. How our stewardship has proven short-sighted. Perhaps Thanksgiving can be transformed into a true ecological holiday celebration; one that includes our responsibility not only for ‘the civil body politic’ but for all life on the planet.

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Re: [Oe List ...] Dorothy Day and Joe Mathews on the Same Track
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Thank you, Randy. Great minds, indeed. Jann In a message dated 11/28/2012 10:43:57 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rcwmbw(a)yahoo.com writes: Friends and Colleagues, One of Joe's quotes, I think from the RS-1 Church Lecture, which many of you may have used from time to time, as I have, to express your frustration with the church, was "The church is a whore but she's my mother." Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, would have been 115 years old this month. The Catholic Church is currently in the process of canonizing her. Today I ran across an article which she wrote and published in The Catholic Worker in January of 1967 entitled "In Peace Is My Bitterness Most Bitter." In this article she is chastising some of those in the church who, among other things, had called for a "total" U.S. victory in the Viet Nam War. In that article I discovered this quote from Dorothy Day. "As to the Church... Though she is a harlot at times, she is our Mother." (Joe may well have placed the comma after the word "harlot.") Having imagined all these years that this was one of the more brazen statements Joe Mathews ever uttered, I was amazed to run across the same statement, from about that same time, from a Catholic nun. I'm not sure why this struck me as such an interesting discovery. Perhaps it is that, as I continue in the midst of my life-long love/hate relationship with institutional Christianity, I found new justification that it is a struggle worth having. Whether Joe got the quote from Dorothy Day or vice versa, or whether it was a case of two great minds using the same analogy, I thought it worth sharing with you. If anyone knows more about the history of this statement, I would interested to hear. Be well, Randy "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] Thanksgiving musing
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 27 Nov '12

27 Nov '12

Jaime, As usual, I enjoyed your article, but hardly think the wild turkey is endangered. I could be wrong, but they are quite numerous in coast range hills of California. Blessings, Jann McGuire In a message dated 11/20/2012 4:51:35 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, svesjaime(a)aol.com writes: The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com> To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera(a)saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago(a)saipantribune.com>; editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Tue, Nov 20, 2012 8:48 pm Subject: For Thursday T-Day Three perspectives underlie the structure of Christian thought in the last two millennia. The most familiar one is transcendence where paradise in the metaphor of heaven is located elsewhere than where we currently are. Then there is earthly immanence, the transformation that occurs when one unconditionally embraces the fullness of life in the here-and-now. The third is the spirit of freedom, transparent exercise of responsibility in the realm of finite historical choices. In ritual, these perspectives were intoned in the medieval formula of naming realities, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" In current parlance, that would be rehearsing the role of the Terminator, the Transformer, and the Turkey! Human civilization ritualize certain events like the culmination of a harvest, the completion of a monumental task, or just the satisfaction over the passing of a crisis. Gratitude is a garden variety of human virtue. It joins other modes of affirmed consciousness in the practices of personal confession, societal petition, and relational intercession, long observed in prayerful communities. We tarry along the religious path of this national holiday because most Americans gather around family tables this day in the mythology of the first perspective. In such spirit began the annual celebration after Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in Heaven". Brownscombe 1914 painting of Plymouth settlers feasting with natives has become a familiar visual to accounts. Historians tell of 53 Plymouth settlers and 90 Indians holding a three-day feast after the settlers survived their first year of harsh winter. (Revisionists point out that narratives, at least, need to acknowledge how the native residents were later turned into targets on T-day's turkey shoots!) FDR nailed the date down to the fourth Thursday of November, to settle the uncertainty of day on those years when there are five Thursdays in November. Not all States complied. It became a joke that when there were five Thursday, observance on the fourth made it Democratic while on the fifth, Republican. The celebration has commercially evolved into a season of shopping, marked by Macy's Parade, merrily rolls down the store aisles until way past New Year, with the apex reached with Santa's gifts under the Tannenbaum bought and wrapped before Christmas eve. The intrusion of the dollar into the equation watered down the religious emphasis specifically made Christian in the presidential proclamations of Presbyterian pastor's son Grover Cleveland and staunch Methodist William McKinley. Gerald Ford made the day totally secular skewing previous references to providence in his proclamation. The media was not pleased. Ford lost the next election. Ronald Reagan chuckled the "pardoning" of the proffered turkey, and George H. W. Bush made the practice a permanent fixture in the annual presidential ritual. Bill Clinton emphasized gratitude to those who serve to promote the American vision and implement its mission. George W. Bush took the task of international peace into the war room on terror after 9/11. Obama was criticized for not thanking "God" in his proclamation of 2011. American sentiment shifted. Obama got reelected. Along with many College and Professional Sports' events, Holiday movies get a Thanksgiving premiere to test their weight in the box office. The pumpkin pie remains a dinner staple but the contest is in the field on the biggest and heaviest variety raised. Meanwhile, the wild turkey joins the list of the endangered specie. The t-bird that graces holiday tables lost its thunder and smell, coming from coops where they are fattened for weight. The meat hardly emits the familiar fragrant fowl flavor and aroma characteristic of the wild bird in the prairies now relegated to the trademark of a Bourbon. Thanksgiving Day in China has all the trappings of western commercial symbols devoid of historical moorings. In Saipan, we render obeisance to providential divinity in the cosmic realm. It is a matter of course but irrelevant. In my campus building, gratitude is echoed by the Anshallah of Muslims from Africa, the Middle East, South-Southeast Asia who share my building's morning elevator ride with their gracious salutations of Salaam Malaikom! Grace drapes the diversity. Save for a lone Protestant evangelical, we do not see much of the transformative messianic impulse, amazingly gracious, or otherwise. The once 'puritanical' CPC battles corruption within its ranks, with President Hu Jintao declaring at the recent Party Congress that if the practice is not curtailed, it will be the death knell of the Party and the government in the next decade. The hyperbole on service reminiscent of Mao's vaunted service is met by a skeptical smirk. The current gap of income distribution is deep and wide. That's all that seem to matter in a newly affluent and resurgent China. The Terminator remained with Ahnold in California. The Transformer is still a toy but got animated in the fight between the autobots and the decepticons. As for my gobble gobble, I will stick with the turkey! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Colleen Birch Smith
by Clare Whitney 26 Nov '12

26 Nov '12

Colleen Birth Smith left this life Thanksgiving afternoon in Moab Utah where she had lived for several years near her son and his family. She and her husband, Victor, came to the community from Salt Lake City where they were in the religious house. They went to Cusak, WA when the project began there and she worked as a Vista volunteer. Victor died in 1980. In 1982 she took assignment to Samoa and then to Tonga, returning in 1985 and living in Denver. She moved to Moab several years ago to be near family. She has been sick for some time and while there is sorrow on our part that she has left us, we also rejoice that her earthly pain is over. She leaves two sons and a daughter and many colleagues who remember her keen understanding and her passion for justice wherever she was. Grace and Peace, Clare Whitney, Denver

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Harry Wainwright
by Lynda Cock 25 Nov '12

25 Nov '12

In conversation with Mary Ann this evening, I learned that Harry has stablized greatly and is looking forward to a pacemaker surgery tomorrow. He's been on quite a journey the last week and seems to be doing so much better. They have high praise for the cardiac unit at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. Continue to hold them in your care, Lynda Cock

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Harry Wainwright
by Lynda Cock 23 Nov '12

23 Nov '12

According to the message from Marianna Bailey, Harry appears to be stable following a heart attack on Nov. 20, when he was placed in critical care. He is in Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. We add this name to those we hold in our care. Lynda Cock _____ From: Marianna Bailey [mailto:wmbailey@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:23 PM To: Lynda Cock Subject: Re: prayer chain, now I Haven't heard from Mary Ann today so I assume Harry is the same. The message has not gone out to OE. I did call Rob and Chris Work. Please do forward to OE. We are getting settled into our new apartment and like the Deerfield community very much.. Lynn lives in Asheville and Tom is now living in New Jersey (not near the coast!) Nan lives in the New York area but visits often. Please do come by to see us when you travel this way. Thanks to you and John for the daily blog. I always look forward to the picture and the quote. With Love, Marianna On Nov 22, 2012, at 4:17 PM, Lynda Cock wrote: I am so pleased to learn Harry is stable. Did this message also go out to the OE list? to the Stovers? If not, may I forward it? Or will you put it on? I know folks will want to be supportive of Harry and Mary Ann. Thank you for letting us know. I'll write Mary Ann. Hope you both are doing well. Are you enjoying your new living space? I hope to make a TN trip this spring and would love to stop by to visit with you. We also invite you to stop by if you are coming this way to visit Tom. Is he still in Tarborro? I think I recall that Lynn moved to Asheville. Is that correct? We are so grateful for this connection with colleagues with whom we have shared this incredible journey. Lynda and John _____ From: Marianna Bailey [mailto:wmbailey@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 11:54 AM To: Lynda Cock Subject: Fwd: prayer chain, now The last I heard he is stable. Begin forwarded message: From: Aliyah Schick <aliyahschick(a)bellsouth.net> Date: November 20, 2012 11:22:03 PM EST To: Aliyah Schick <aliyahschick(a)bellsouth.net> Subject: prayer chain, now Dear friends, >From Marianna Bailey at 7:30 this evening, Harry Wainwright is in critical condition at Mission Hospital due to a heart attack. Please pray for Harry and for Mary Ann, both long time members of Jubilee and of this prayer chain. Love, Aliyah Jubilee! Prayer Chain

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