November 2012 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

hAPPY THANKSGIVING!
by Ellie Stock 22 Nov '12

22 Nov '12

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL ~ VERY GRATEFUL FOR ALL OF YOU AND FOR OUR NETWORKING, WORK, AND COLLEGIALITY OVER THE YEARS ~ PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE! GRACE AND PEACE ~ CARLETON AND ELLIE

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11/22/12, Spong: The Boil Has Been Lanced. A New Consciousness Has Arrived
by Ellie Stock 22 Nov '12

22 Nov '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Boil Has Been Lanced. A New Consciousness Has Arrived The votes have been cast, counted and the results have been made known. Radio and television stations are no longer relentlessly broadcasting anti-Obama and anti-Romney ads. The emotions of both victory and defeat have been experienced and expressed. The “blame game” is well underway. The 2012 election is over. President Obama has four more years in the White House. The Senate has a larger Democratic majority. The House of Representatives has a smaller Republican majority. Beyond these measurable results, however, another reality needs to be embraced. A new consciousness has emerged in this nation’s life and with it different and clear definitions of race, women, homosexuals and tribal thinking have entered the body politic. The birth pangs of this new consciousness are being felt in both the exhilaration of the victors and in the anger and despair of the losers. Racism has been a powerful, unspoken reality in every aspect of American life from the moment of this nation’s birth, contradicting everything we said we believed as a nation. When our Declaration of Independence was written it stated that each “man” was endowed by his creator with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Yet, its author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slave holder and, indeed, the father of a number of children by a slave woman, Sally Hemings, none of whom would be counted as his heirs. When the Constitution of the United States was written, it counted each slave as 3/5 of a human being for the purposes of determining the size of congressional districts. In those documents marking this nation’s birth, women were completely disenfranchised and would not be given the vote until a constitutional amendment conveyed that right in 1920. Obviously, no woman could hold elective office, since women were excluded from institutions of higher learning that might have equipped them for careers outside the domestic sphere. At the beginning of our nation’s history, homosexuality was viewed as an abnormality, which brought great shame on the parents. The liberal understanding of homosexuality was that it was a mental sickness that the victim could not help, which should elicit at least a sense of pity. The conservative understanding was, that it was an act of moral depravity that evil people chose freely and thus it should be opposed and or repressed like all other unacceptable kinds of behavior. Ethnic or tribal feelings also ran deeply in that era. The white American majority identified themselves primarily with their European tribal roots, which included among others, the Angles, the Saxons, the Welsh, the Scots, the Franks and the Prussians. Historically, these tribes roamed across Europe’s unstable and ever-shifting map, seeking to lay claim to space to call a homeland. Germany, under Prussian pressure, did not become a nation state until the 19th century and Italy had to fight the Pope, Pius IX, to form a unified country, also in the 19th century. All of these attitudes were based on the operating definitions of that day and were in turn undergirded by the cultural forms of religion, which were assumed to be authenticated by scriptural quotations from the Bible, called the “word of God.” One by one the definitions behind each of these attitudes was challenged and the previously established values began to change, as a new consciousness based on new definitions was evolving. At first this new consciousness was only the voice of an agitated and alienated minority that was viewed in establishment circles as a threat to both law and order and needed to be destroyed or suppressed. As this new consciousness grew, however, the majority point of view began to feel power slipping away and this fear expressed itself in rising decibels of anger that frequently turned violent and even resulted in random acts of murder. The issue of race has dominated this country from its founding in 1776 to the civil war that brought an end to slavery by 1865. In 1876, in a political compromise that awarded the electoral votes of four disputed Southern States, including Florida, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president. The compromise called for the removal of Northern troops of occupation from the South and the quid pro quo was a willingness to allow slavery to be replaced by segregation as the law of the land. This new law allowed the total disenfranchisement of black citizens and its implementation was enforced by intimidation, lynching and the activities of the KKK. Segregation held sway from 1876 to the birth of the civil rights movement after World War II, which finally resulted in the 1954 Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision desegregating schools. In 1964 and in 1965, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, was also appointed by Lyndon Johnson in 1967, creating the idea of a “black seat” on the court that Republican President George H.W. Bush honored in 1991. As segregation receded, however, police dogs, fire hoses and church bombings were used to prop up the dying power of the old order. No new consciousness is born without rampant anger from those being displaced. In 2004, I attended, as a member of the press, the Democratic National Convention, in Boston, which nominated John Kerry to be President of the United States. I listened to the keynote address given by a sitting Illinois State Senator and the Democratic nominee in Illinois for the United States Senate in the coming elections. His name was Barack Obama. I filed a story from that convention stating that I believed I had finally seen a black politician, who could be elected President of the United States. Just 4 years later that indeed happened. A new racial attitude was clearly breaking through. Changes in the roles of women and gay people were happening simultaneously. The first successful women politicians tended to be wives of successful male politicians. One thinks of Lurleen Wallace in Alabama, for example. Women had not been allowed to receive university educations in America until the early years of the 20th century and the state universities and private colleges were not open to them until well after World War II. Since then their rise in power and influence has been rapid. Today in some states both senate seats are held by women. Women first appeared on a major party’s national ticket in 1984. When Franklin Roosevelt appointed the first woman to his cabinet in 1932 it was a radical and hugely controversial step. Today it is a universal expectation. When Ronald Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, to the Supreme Court, he established the principle that there is a “woman’s seat” on that court. That idea that there must be “one woman justice” soon departed and today there are three female sitting justices. Quite typically, the churches of this land have been very late in adjusting to female equality and some have not done so yet. Beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969, the gay population entered in a major way the struggle for recognition and a new definition. In time Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts, entered the ranks of national leaders as chairman of the House Banking Committee and gave his name to the Dodd-Frank Bill designed to curb the speculative practices of banks. Once again religious institutions were the most dismissive of these trends and many religious bodies split as some in their ranks could not adjust to new realities. While all of these things were happening on the level of what had once been the plight of those we called minorities, the economy of the world began to draw nations beyond their tribal identities into an economic interdependency never before imagined. The European Common Market withered the independence of Europe’s nation states. The same economic trends are happening in North and South American and in Southeast Asia, although they are not yet as far advanced as in Europe. National sovereignty is giving way to larger economic entities. So the fact is that this change in consciousness, which began as a crawl, is now galloping in all directions and as the world changes the fear of those whose power is declining is increasing. In the American primaries of 2008 a host of candidates, who would never have been considered for the presidency earlier, were serious contenders. There was a viable Hispanic candidate in Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico; a viable female candidate in Senator Hillary Clinton of New York; a viable Mormon candidate in Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts; a viable twice divorced and three times married candidate in Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City, and a viable African-American candidate in Barack Obama. When Barack Obama was elected it was a major breakthrough in consciousness, but the loss of both power and influence of the defeated ones found expression in thinly veiled racist language: “He is not one of us.” “He is illegitimate because his birth certificate was forged.” “He is a Muslim.” “We must take back America.” “He was really born in Kenya.” “He channels his Kenyan father’s anti-colonial mentality and hatred of white people.” These opposing voices vowed to limit him to being “a one-term president.” All of that lay behind the election of 2012. The rise in consciousness, however, has proved not to be a temporary phenomenon. President Obama, despite a weak economy, high unemployment, his public support for same sex marriage and the visceral anger of his opponents, was reelected. A post-election analysis revealed that his winning coalition was made up of women, minority and young voters. The world has changed. This nation has changed. An African-American is president for four more years. The number of women in the Senate has doubled. Two new members of the House of Representatives are under 32 years of age and more black citizens have entered the political process and occupy seats of power. Three states voted their approval of gay marriage and a lesbian was elected to the Senate from Wisconsin. The power of white males, supported by the overwhelmingly male religious institutions, that have controlled this nation’s political and religious life for so long is in obvious decline. The idea that a white, male establishment can direct women on issues of abortion and contraception has been broken. By 2016, the candidacies of women, Hispanics, African-Americans and openly gay people will be normal. Both parties will seek their votes. Republicans are already looking at their rising Hispanic stars, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, for the presidency. The Democrats yearn even now to anoint Hillary Clinton to be their new standard bearer. The grid-lock between the old establishment and the new consciousness that held the government hostage for the past two years will be broken and will no longer be tolerated by the people. The election of 2012 reveals that the United States is in a new place. The anger exposed in such movements as the Tea Party will now dissipate. This was anger’s last stand. The citizens of this nation will adjust to this new reality. That is what always happens. Perhaps the feeling is not universal today, but in another generation this nation will be very proud of what we did in the presidential election of 2012. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Bryan Turk from Arlington, Texas, writes: Question: First off, I want to thank you. I have read The Sins of Scripture and Jesus for the Non-Religious and truly enjoyed both works. Your progressive view of God and theology has certainly been inspiring to me. I admire your strength of character and integrity for standing at odds with your religious upbringing. You are a hero of sorts to me and I can't thank you enough. I know all too well what it is like to grow up and currently live in the buckle of the Bible belt. While my sociological and political views today are much more progressive, I grew up in Louisiana in a fundamentalist Bible church. My father was on the board of elders. After several years of doubting what he believed and following his divorce from my mom, he embraced atheism. For years I struggled with his conversion and felt so lost in my own spirituality. The old worn-out tenets of Deep South Christianity gnawed away at me. I felt like I would lose him to eternal hell. After a few years, my own search for what I believe led me to viewing YouTube clips of you and subsequently some of your books and essays. At this point in my life, I’m still charting my course on my view of a God and things of spiritual nature. I lean towards atheism, but could be considered agnostic or deist or even pantheist at best. I really don’t know how to characterize what school of thought I espouse. However, theism for me is dead or rather non-existent. It still feels really great to know that I don’t have to believe the Bible in a strict, literal sense anymore. I still struggle with guilt from time to time. Especially the fear of death at times because of my apostasy. I would like clarification of the gospel writers. I know that Mark was the first gospel written around 70-72 CE shortly after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans. I recently had a fundamentalist Christian tell me that her reason for believing the literal account of the life of Jesus was because the gospel writers were “disciples” of Jesus. It would seem to me that obviously these were not first hand accounts of Jesus because the first gospel was written some 40 years after his death. And Paul gives us sparse details on the actual life of Jesus. Paul would seem to be a better fit for someone that actually “saw” Jesus. Do you believe that any of the gospel writers walked or talked with Jesus? Through reading Jesus for the Non-Religious, I realize that Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark and so on. Much of what was written in the gospels were filtered through the lens of Jewish heritage and the Old Testament. I just want to increase my consciousness on these points so that I can discuss cogently and truthfully with people I come across who are fundamentalist Christians. Answer: Dear Bryan, First, thank you for your generous comments. Second, thanks for sharing with me some elements of your own faith struggle. It is not easy sometimes to move beyond yesterday’s certainties even when you have been disillusioned by them. My advice is simply to engage those feelings and not to be afraid to talk about them. For many people their religion is part of their security system and they hide within its defensive walls from any study or threat. When those walls don’t hold, that person feels exposed, let down and angry. It is not surprising that you now wish to hurl the whole system overboard. Christianity is, I believe, far more than what you have experienced. Another path for you might be to decide to study Christianity, including the Bible, more deeply than you ever have done before. To do this, however, you must be part of a church that welcomes such a dialogue. I hope you can find that. To answer your specific questions, your fundamentalist friend is simply wrong. It is clear that none of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about in their gospels. First, the gospels were written between 40 and 70 years after the crucifixion. That same time frame embraces between two and three generations. If the disciples were Jesus’ contemporaries, they would have been when the gospels were written between 70-100 years old, far beyond the normal life expectancy in the first century. Second, the gospels were written in Greek, a language that none of the disciples or indeed not even Jesus himself appears to have either spoken or written. Third, the gospels reflect the background of the liturgical year of the synagogue. Prior to their having been written, the memory of Jesus had already been incorporated into the worship life of the synagogue and interpreted through the Hebrew Scriptures that were present in those synagogues. Paul does not seem to have ever interacted with the Jesus of history. He does claim to have “seen the Lord,” but that is apparently a reference to the conversion vision. I wish you well in your conversations with your fundamentalist friends. I have never found that to be a productive avenue to pursue because religious discussions are not really about religion. They are about people’s personal security and anything that confirms their security becomes what they believe. People move out of fundamentalism when they are ready to move, not when someone like you tries to push them. This was at least my experience when I was a fundamentalist. Most of the things I talk about in Jesus for the Non-Religious have been available in the world of biblical scholarship for almost 200 years. Fundamentalists have simply ignored these discoveries and insights if they could and they have denied them if they could not ignore them. I suggest that you simply love your fundamentalist friends, but don’t try to argue with them. Live well! ~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

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Documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
by Ellie Stock 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Hi folks-- Below is a link to a new PBS documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream. First is an article. If you go to the bottom, there is a link to HULU where you can watch the whole documentary. It is about 1hr 10min., plus a few commercials but well worth the time to see it and begin to understand the relationship between big corporate money, the US political system, the environment, and poverty. A continued call for us to work on creating more resilient, self-reliant, sustainable re-localized communities and bio-regions. Ellie Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, PBS, check ... www.patheos.com/blogs/sisterrosemovies/2012/11/park-avenue-money-power-and-... Nov 12, 2012 ... The notice announcing Academy Award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's new documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American ... Hi folks-- Below is a link to a new PBS documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream. First is an article. If you go to the bottom, there is a link to HULU where you can watch the whole documentary. It is about 1hr 10min., plus a few commercials but well worth the time to see it and begin to understand the relationship between big corporate money, the US political system, the environment, and poverty. A continued call for us to work on creating more resilient, self-reliant, sustainable re-localized communities and bio-regions. Ellie Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, PBS, check ... www.patheos.com/blogs/sisterrosemovies/2012/11/park-avenue-money-power-and-... Nov 12, 2012 ... The notice announcing Academy Award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's new documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American ...

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Hmm, wonder if this happened in WWII?
by James Wiegel 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH: A Brief Overview What is posttraumatic growth? It is positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event. Although we coined the term posttraumatic growth, the idea that human beings can be changed by their encounters with life challenges, sometimes in radically positive ways, is not new. The theme is present in ancient spiritual and religious traditions, literature, and philosophy. What is reasonably new is the systematic study of this phenomenon by psychologists, social workers, counselors, and scholars in other traditions of clinical practice and scientific investigation. What forms does posttraumatic growth take? Posttraumatic growth tends to occur in five general areas. Sometimes people who must face major life crises develop a sense that new opportunities have emerged from the struggle, opening up possibilities that were not present before. A second area is a change in relationships with others. Some people experience closer relationships with some specific people, and they can also experience an increased sense of connection to others who suffer. A third area of possible change is an increased sense of one’s own strength – “if I lived through that, I can face anything”. A fourth aspect of posttraumatic growth experienced by some people is a greater appreciation for life in general. The fifth area involves the spiritual or religious domain. Some individuals experience a deepening of their spiritual lives, however, this deepening can also involve a significant change in one’s belief system. Some Clarifications Most of us, when we face very difficult losses or great suffering, will have a variety of highly distressing psychological reactions. Just because individuals experience growth does not mean that they will not suffer. Distress is typical when we face traumatic events. We most definitely are not implying that traumatic events are good – they are not. But for many of us, life crises are inevitable and we are not given the choice between suffering and growth on the one hand, and no suffering and no change, on the other. Posttraumatic growth is not universal. It is not uncommon, but neither does everybody who faces a traumatic event experience growth. Our hope is that you never face a major loss or crisis, but most of us eventually do, and perhaps you may also experience an encounter with posttraumatic growth. Jim Wiegel "Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.. You got to change with it." Woody Guthrie 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods Coming in February. Ask about an inhouse course ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday of every month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.

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FOCUS: Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein | Capitalism and Climate Change [video and transcript of interview]
by Ellie Stock 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Good interview of Naomi Klein by Bill Moyers on Climate Change. Would recommend her book Shock Doctrine, as well. Ellie If you are having problems viewing this message please click here: http://www.readersupportednews.org/ Reader Supported News | 18 November 12 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News FOCUS: Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein | Capitalism and Climate Change Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein, Moyers & Company Excerpt: "We've had this concerted campaign by the fossil fuel lobby to both buy off the environmental movement, to defame the environmental movement, to infiltrate the environmental movement, and to spread lies in the culture." READ MORE Contribute to RSN Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook You Are Subscribed As: carletonstock(a)aol.com Subscribe Unsubscribe If you are having problems viewing this message please click here: http://www.readersupportednews.org/ Reader Supported News | 18 November 12 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News FOCUS: Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein | Capitalism and Climate Change Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein, Moyers & Company Excerpt: "We've had this concerted campaign by the fossil fuel lobby to both buy off the environmental movement, to defame the environmental movement, to infiltrate the environmental movement, and to spread lies in the culture." READ MORE Contribute to RSN Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook You Are Subscribed As: carletonstock(a)aol.com Subscribe Unsubscribe

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Thanksgiving musing
by Jaime R Vergara 20 Nov '12

20 Nov '12

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 thoughtin the last two millennia. The mostfamiliar one is transcendence where paradise in the metaphor of heaven islocated elsewhere than where we currently are. Then there is earthly immanence, the transformation that occurs when oneunconditionally 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 historicalchoices. In ritual, these perspectives were intoned in the medievalformula of naming realities, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and theHoly Ghost!" In current parlance,that would be rehearsing the role of the Terminator, the Transformer, and theTurkey! Human civilization ritualize certain events like theculmination of a harvest, the completion of a monumental task, or just thesatisfaction over the passing of a crisis. Gratitude is a garden variety of human virtue. It joins other modes of affirmed consciousnessin the practices of personal confession, societal petition, and relationalintercession, long observed in prayerful communities. We tarry along the religious path of this national holidaybecause most Americans gather around family tables this day in the mythology ofthe first perspective. In such spiritbegan the annual celebration after Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed anational day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father whodwelleth in Heaven". Brownscombe 1914 painting of Plymouth settlers feastingwith natives has become a familiar visual to accounts. Historians tell of 53 Plymouth settlers and90 Indians holding a three-day feast after the settlers survived their firstyear of harsh winter. (Revisionistspoint out that narratives, at least, need to acknowledge how the native residentswere later turned into targets on T-day's turkey shoots!) FDR nailed the date down to the fourth Thursday ofNovember, to settle the uncertainty of day on those years when there are fiveThursdays in November. Not all Statescomplied. It became a joke that whenthere were five Thursday, observance on the fourth made it Democratic while onthe fifth, Republican. The celebration has commercially evolved into a season ofshopping, marked by Macy's Parade, merrily rolls down the store aisles until waypast New Year, with the apex reached with Santa's gifts under the Tannenbaum boughtand wrapped before Christmas eve. Theintrusion of the dollar into the equation watered down the religious emphasisspecifically made Christian in the presidential proclamations of Presbyterianpastor's son Grover Cleveland and staunch Methodist William McKinley. Gerald Ford made the day totally secular skewing previousreferences 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 thepractice a permanent fixture in the annual presidential ritual. Bill Clinton emphasized gratitude to thosewho serve to promote the American vision and implement its mission. George W. Bush took the task of internationalpeace into the war room on terror after 9/11. Obama was criticized for not thanking "God" in hisproclamation of 2011. American sentimentshifted. Obama got reelected. Along with many College and Professional Sports' events,Holiday movies get a Thanksgiving premiere to test their weight in the boxoffice. The pumpkin pie remains a dinnerstaple but the contest is in the field on the biggest and heaviest varietyraised. Meanwhile, the wild turkey joinsthe list of the endangered specie. Thet-bird that graces holiday tables lost its thunder and smell, coming from coopswhere they are fattened for weight. Themeat hardly emits the familiar fragrant fowl flavor and aroma characteristic ofthe wild bird in the prairies now relegated to the trademark of a Bourbon. Thanksgiving Day in China has all the trappings ofwestern commercial symbols devoid of historical moorings. In Saipan, we render obeisance toprovidential 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-SoutheastAsia who share my building's morning elevator ride with their gracious salutationsof Salaam Malaikom! Grace drapes thediversity. Save for a lone Protestant evangelical, we do not seemuch of the transformative messianic impulse, amazingly gracious, orotherwise. The once 'puritanical' CPC battlescorruption within its ranks, with President Hu Jintao declaring at the recent PartyCongress that if the practice is not curtailed, it will be the death knell ofthe Party and the government in the next decade. The hyperbole on service reminiscent of Mao'svaunted 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 newlyaffluent and resurgent China. The Terminator remained with Ahnold in California. The Transformer is still a toy but gotanimated in the fight between the autobots and the decepticons. As for my gobble gobble, I will stick with theturkey! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

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ANOTHER ONE: Can someone send me a copy of the Boulding paper please?
by James Wiegel 20 Nov '12

20 Nov '12

Here is another 'Boulding" paper . . . Jim Wiegel "Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.. You got to change with it." Woody Guthrie 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods Coming in February. Ask about an inhouse course ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday of every month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Sat, 11/17/12, Frank Knutson <f.knutson(a)verizon.net> wrote: From: Frank Knutson <f.knutson(a)verizon.net> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Can someone send me a copy of the Boulding paper please? To: "ICA-USA" <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Saturday, November 17, 2012, 12:53 PM Re: [Oe List ...] Can someone send me a copy of the Boulding paper please? Thanks George, You've got to be taught to hate and fear You've got to be taught from year to year It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made And people whose skin is a different shade You've got to be carefully taught You've got to be taught before it's too late Before you are six or seven or eight To hate all the people your relatives hate You've got to be carefully taught You've got to be carefully taught ~ Rodgers and Hammerstein ♥ -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Change of Email Address
by Herman Greene 19 Nov '12

19 Nov '12

I am changing my email address from the below to hfgreene.nc(a)gmail.com (or, if you prefer hfgreenenc.com, Google doesn't recognize periods in the name part). I expect to close my current account at the end of the year, but prefer for you to use my new account beginning right away. David Dunn are you maintaining this listserve. Could yoyu change my email address? Thanks, Herman _____________________________________________ Herman Greene 2516 Winningham Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-929-4116 (h) 919-624-0579 (c) 919-942-4358 (f) Skype: hgreene-nc hfgreene(a)mindspring.com

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11/15/12, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part II: Paul and the Virgin Birth
by Ellie Stock 18 Nov '12

18 Nov '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part II: Paul and the Virgin Birth In the writings of Paul, there is not a single reference to a supernatural birth tradition, regarding Jesus of Nazareth. That is a fact easily established. Determining what that fact means is a bit more complicated. Does this omission mean that Paul was unaware of this part of the Christian tradition? Is it possible that a story as dramatic as the one that appeared 20-30 years later in the gospels of Matthew and Luke could have been ignored by Paul, if it had been known? Paul was an educated man. The idea of a great person being born in a supernatural way that presaged his greatness was not unknown. There were birth legends surrounding the nativity of such icons as Alexander the great, Romulus and Remus and the deity called Mithra, for example, all of which were almost certainly known by Paul. So the evidence suggests that Paul did not include any reference to this tradition in regard to Jesus’ birth because he had never heard of it. If Paul had never heard of this tradition, the overwhelmingly probable explanation of this fact would be that the miraculous stories of Jesus’ birth had not yet been written, which means that they were not an original part of the Christian story. That is, however, an argument from silence and as such is not regarded as particularly definitive. So we turn to Paul’s writings to see what might be possible for us to conclude as the reality that Paul knew on this subject. Paul gives us some biographical details in one of his earliest epistles, the Epistle to the Galatians. Here he argues that the gospel he proclaims “is not man’s (nor according to man) gospel.” He goes on to say, “I did not receive it from man nor was I taught it but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:10-12). Then he recites his history as a persecutor of the Christian Church. Obviously that was well known, but we need to be aware that the details of his conversion on the road to Damascus will not be written until Luke produced the Book of Acts in the tenth decade of the Common Era, some 30 plus years after the death of Paul. Paul then describes his life in Judaism in which he asserts that he was “extremely zealous” for “the tradition of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14). Then he described his conversion saying that God had “set me apart” and was “pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” To back up this claim, Paul says that after his conversion, which scholars place between one and six years following the crucifixion, he went to Arabia for three years and only then went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephus, that is Peter, and stayed with him for 15 days. He says he saw no other apostle “except for James, the Lord’s brother.” So somewhere no earlier than four years and no later than nine years after the crucifixion, Paul was in the presence of Peter and James, the brother of Jesus. In the first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 11 and in chapter 15, Paul uses the phrase, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” In chapter 11 that phrase introduces Paul’s understanding of the institution of the “Lord’s Supper” and in chapter 15 he relates the final events in Jesus’ life: the crucifixion, the burial and the Easter experience of resurrection. From putting these things together we know that Paul learned many of the details of the Jesus story from his association with the disciples, though Paul insists that he got to know Jesus directly, by way of a revelatory experience. He also knows that Jesus had a brother. If the miraculous birth of Jesus had been a fact of history instead of a later developing legend, it seems obvious that an event of this presumed degree of importance would have been communicated to Paul. It wasn’t. In none of Paul’s writings is there any mention of the mother of Jesus, the father of Jesus or the birth of Jesus. This still remains, however, an argument from silence and as such continues to be weak and inconclusive. So, back to the Epistle to the Galatians we go in search of more data. Here we discover that Paul actually discusses the origins of Jesus. Interpreting the differences in being a child in a family as opposed to being a slave in a family, he argues that children are heirs and that even though they are placed under the authority of guardians, teachers and trustees until they come of age, they are nonetheless destined for freedom and their inheritance. Paul uses this analogy to explain the role of the law given to the people of Israel. The law is to them what guardians, teachers and trustees are to children who are not yet of age. They are obedient to them while they wait for their promised inheritance. In Paul’s mind, the role of Jesus was to give to all human life, Jews and Gentiles alike, the inheritance of full humanity, “sonship” he called it in the patriarchal world. Then in a wonderfully clear affirmation, Paul asserts this: “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as “sons” (Gal. 4:8). For Paul, Jesus was “born of a woman.” That is, he was born just like any other person. It is not possible, he was suggesting, to be born in any other way. Could the word that is translated “woman” have in it any connotation of virgin? Not a chance! The Greek word used here is a form of the word “gunos” from which we get the word gynecology. It is not the word “parthenos” from which we get the word “parthenogenesis,” that is to give birth by a single sex and which does include the connotation of virgin. Jesus came from God the way every life comes from God, he was born of a woman. Paul also says that like every Jew he was also born under the law. Paul could not be clearer. The idea of a miraculous or virgin birth is never hinted at by this early Christian writer because he had never heard of it. The story of Jesus’ supernatural birth had not yet been written or developed. When these birth stories were written, one of their purposes was to assert that from the moment of his birth, Jesus was uniquely related to God. It is also clear that this idea was not one even entertained by Paul. To make this case we turn to the opening verses of the Epistle to the Romans. Paul certainly gives expression to his conviction that somehow and through some means, the reality of God they thought of as transcendent had been experienced as present in Jesus of Nazareth. In his early epistles he was content simply to proclaim the reality of this experience not to explain it. So he wrote that “God was in Christ” and the content that made this claim real was the experience of “reconciliation.” In the Christ experience, those people who had once been separated are brought together. Again, in Galatians, the apostle proclaims that inside the Christ experience, human differences and human barriers simply fade away. In Christ, there is no such thing as tribal identity, that is, there is no Jew or Greek, no Jew or Gentile, but one humanity. In Christ, there is no gender identity, no male or female, but a single humanity. In Christ, value is not established by economic or social standards, there is no bond or free, no slave or master, but a new creation, a new oneness. That was the God experience that Paul found in Jesus. It was a theme resonating throughout the New Testament. We see it in the Pentecost story of Acts 2 where spirit-filled people are said to be able to communicate in the same language of human oneness. We see it in the divine commission in Matthew 28 where the followers of Jesus are instructed in the name of Jesus to go to those whom they have previously described as unclean and unworthy and to proclaim to them the limitless love of God. We see it in the Fourth Gospel in which Jesus defines his purpose as giving abundant life to all. That is the God experience that his followers believed they had met in Jesus. When did this God presence enter into Jesus? Paul says it was at the time of the resurrection. This was the moment in which God and Jesus became one in the mind of Paul. So to the Romans he writes that Jesus was descended from King David “according to the flesh,” but was “designated Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:3-4). As the tradition developed, that moment when God and Jesus became part of each other would get earlier and earlier. In Mark it was when he was baptized. In Matthew and Luke, it was when he was conceived. In John it was at the dawn of creation. The story of the origins of Jesus’ power would develop significantly between Paul and the later gospels. In that later development, the story of the Virgin Birth would be born and it would begin to grow. Paul, however, knew nothing of this tradition, since it was not developed until well after his death. The witness of Paul is clear. He never heard of the Virgin Birth. This fact begins to relativize the power of this claim as “revealed truth.” The Virgin Birth is not an essential ingredient in the Christian story. Why? Because one can hardly say that Paul, who had never heard of the Virgin Birth tradition, was not a Christian. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Cynthia A. MoriczdeTecso via the internet writes: Question: You may not remember me but I grew up attending St. John's Boonton with Father Jack Thorn. Back then I was known as Cindy and the daughter of Ian and Allie Moricz. Ian was the "Lay Person" who helped Father Thorn. I know you always meet so many people, but I did have a question and thought you would be the best person to ask. As a child I knew that there were things we could and could not see around us. I am not just talking about the Holy Spirit or God, but ghosts, angels and demons. As an adult, I been involved with paranormal investigations. I have had some incredible experiences and began a blog site to share my personal stories as well as evidence I have captured (www.originalcynpi.com) I always had an inclining that I wanted to write a book on the subject but there are so many out there that I wanted to be different. This past year, I have been praying to find a topic for a book that I could use to educate people on the paranormal - the good and the bad. The answer came to me that it should be about Religion and how it perceives the paranormal world. My issue is I don't know where to start. Other than angels and demons, I haven't found any mention of ghosts. I am not really sure where to begin looking to find this information. I know that you are truly busy but wondered if you could push me to a starting point as you are a publishing author. PS - Thank you for being who God intended you to be. Your ability to question, allowed me to question and get some answers. Although, I know I have a long way to go before all my questions are answered. Thank you for your consideration. Best regards, Cynthia A. MoriczdeTecso Answer: Dear Cynthia: Yes, I do remember you and your family and I am pleased to her from you once more. You have chosen a complex area to study. It is a legitimate field of inquiry. You do need to be aware that this field attracts lots of people to venture into it, who are on the border of mental stability. this means you need to make clear the boundaries of your study, so as not to be identified with these fringes. Do not waste your time reading on the fringes. The whole subject does not lend itself to verifiable study. There are some resources that can guide you. A generation ago a professor at Duke University, Dr. J.B. Rhine devoted his life to the study of parapsychology and the near death the out of body experiences. If you can find any of his work, it is worth reading. It should be in libraries. A second source is a theologian named John Hick, a citizen of the U.K., now in his nineties, who taught for years at Claremont in California. He did a massive study in this area in a book entitled: "Death and Eternal Life." That book is also probably available in a good library and his bibliography would open many more doors for your study. I hope this will get you started. The closest I came to the subject in my career was in my book Eternal Life: A New Vision -- Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. Your topic was not germane to mine in this book, but I did allude to it. I remain a sceptic about its reality, but I am an open sceptic. My regards to you and any members of your family that might remember me. ~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 ...] YEH!!!!
by PSchrijnen＠aol.com 17 Nov '12

17 Nov '12

Here is a little victory dance.... http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120710.html Paul Schrijnen 13 Bloemfontein Avenue London W12 7BJ +44 7973 206 766 skype: paulus.schrijnen In a message dated 07/11/2012 04:59:32 GMT Standard Time, hfgreene(a)mindspring.com writes: _____________________________________________ Herman Greene 2516 Winningham Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-929-4116 (h) 919-624-0579 (c) 919-942-4358 (f) Skype: hgreene-nc _hfgreene(a)mindspring.com_ (mailto:hfgreene@mindspring.com) _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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