March 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

ARCHIVES
by Marge Philbrook 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

Using this email address which is my own personal address, twice I sent an email to the <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>. Once I sent an email to the < oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>. I thought that I was on both lists to receive email. I did not receive any of these three things I sent. If anyone receives this email please reply to me as you would to anyone else that sends something to the list. Is there anyone who can tell me if everyone else got these messages expect me, or if no one got them. Is there anyone who can tell me how I can get a message to the persons on the list? Marge Philbrook

9 8

ICA Colleagues Moving to Ashville NC April 1st
by Wanda Holcombe 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

Our Austin ICA colleagues Nick & Deborah Denner are traveling this holiday weekend to Ashville, North Carolina to set up their new home of living and working. Some of you may remember Nick as Zapher Denner who worked with us in the 1980's with LENS out of the Hong Kong Centrum. If any of you live in the Ashville area, I hope you will welcome and be in contact with them as to the great gift of having ICA colleagues nearby. They were an active member of our Austin ICA/Order group who met monthly to share food, study & lively dialogue.... Deborah is an Alpha Biotic caregiver and will be setting up her practice in Ashville as they settle in to their new life. Nick is a "master green builder, gardener, etc", Asian health and wellness expert and ICA Methods practitioner. They said it was okay to share their contact information in case anyone wanted to be in touch with them: Mailing: PO Box 2326, Ashville NC 28802 Nick: Cell Phone: (512) 567-6911 Email: nick.denner(a)yahoo.com Deborah: Cell Phone (512) 557-6555 Email: debdenner14(a)yahoo.com Best wishes Nick & Deborah in your new life pathway. We will miss their wisdom and presence in Austin. Grace & Peace Wanda Wanda Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Trail Austin TX 78728 Email: wandah70(a)gmail.com Cell Phone: 512-619-3469

5 4

ICA Colleagues Moving to Ashville NC First of April
by Wanda Holcombe 30 Mar '13

30 Mar '13

Our Austin ICA colleagues Nick & Deborah Denner are traveling this holiday weekend to Ashville, North Carolina to set up their new home of living and working. Some of you may remember Nick as Zapher Denner who worked with us in the 1980's with LENS out of the Hong Kong Centrum. If any of you live in the Ashville area, I hope you will welcome and be in contact with them as to the great gift of having ICA colleagues nearby. They were an active member of our Austin ICA/Order group who met monthly to share food, study & lively dialogue.... Deborah is an Alpha Biotic caregiver and will be setting up her practice in Ashville as they settle in to their new life. Nick is a "master green builder, gardener, etc", Asian health and wellness expert and ICA Methods practitioner. They said it was okay to share their contact information in case anyone wanted to be in touch with them: Mailing: PO Box 2326, Ashville NC 28802 Nick: Cell Phone: (512) 567-6911 Email: nick.denner(a)yahoo.com Deborah: Cell Phone (512) 557-6555 Email: debdenner14(a)yahoo.com Best wishes Nick & Deborah in your new life pathway. We will miss their wisdom and presence in Austin. Grace & Peace Wanda Wanda Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Trail Austin TX 78728 Email: wandah70(a)gmail.com Cell Phone: 512-619-3469

1 0

Fwd: OpEd Tuesday
by Jaime R Vergara 29 Mar '13

29 Mar '13

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: Sun, Mar 24, 2013 1:26 pm Subject: OpEd Tuesday Tuesday's Temple Tour Raised in mainlineReformation tradition of Christendom, steep in Biblical scholarship where webecame clear that the paper idolatry reflected in the “Bible says” syndrome isan aberration rather than the rule, we were spared the literalism that bedevilsmany of fellow wayfarers on the footsteps of the carpenter from Galilee. I will assume that thereader has a healthy appreciation of the Biblical stories but is in no wayattached to the nit-picking, verse-quoting, authority-seeking user of holywrit. As far as the Biblos (literally, many books) is concerned, the writings took morethan a century to accomplish covering more than two centuries of memory, meantto be rich in metaphor on the spiritual journey of the writers, but not intoday’s sense of accounts of events. Nor is it similar to adocument that showed up mysteriously in the hands of the Prophet Mohammed astold by some about the Koran, or of the Book of Mormons of Joseph Smith in upstate New York before his colleagues took off for Missouri and Utah. The Gospels of the NewTestament are four of possible 50 gospel writingsabout Jesus, decided to becanonical 300 years after the fact. Theearliest account we have of Mark was written two generations after the event, seenfrom the perspective of a defeated people after the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 72. The dramaturgy evolvedfrom the incarnate baby Jesus in amanger (Matthew and Luke) through the transcendentperspective of humans distancing themselves from the demands of their bodies (wenow observe a 40-day fast called Lent from the Medieval age), to the full engagement of the blessedchosen person into the plain of historywe call the Holy (wholesome) Week; from the triumphant entry intoJerusalem to the victory of the empty tomb, preceded by the earthiness of acommon meal and a wrenching Friday afternoon crucifixion affirming a resurrection back to Galilee and on to glory. These are languageof drama, not history. We do not always remember that the "nevertheless" story between the hosanna palm fronds on the entry to Jerusalem to the common meal in the Upper Room, into the third hour afternoon on Friday, have since been symbolized in the High Mass as the Eucharist. Let’s recap. Incarnate is the perspective of the “I”, ofeach of us born a free and winsome creative individuals who are one out of twomillion sperms mysteriously chosen by an ovum to create one, unique,unrepeatable gift of humanity of which, there was none like it before, andthere will never be another one like it ever again. The “it” that “I” am, is somebody. So are “you”! Transcendence is theperspective of the Greeks’ “theos” (God) from the heights of Mt. Olympus. In our time, that would be from the farthestreaches of the Hubble telescope. Fromthat perspective, we are not even a pixel in the HDTV of life. Our planet is but the third rock to the sunin a stellar solar system minuscule in the Milky Way, shadowed by the Andromedagiant next door, and we haven’t taken the trillion of light years perspectiveyet. “I” am clearly a nobody in theuniversal scheme of things. History is the “human”perspective. The somebody that is “I”and the nobody that is “me” are merged in the historical “we” of which “I am” afinite part. The human perspective, BTW,is recent, perhaps, no more than 10,000 years in a planet that is 4.3 billionyears old. This is where the story ofthe Jesus the Christ journey fits. Hisstory is carried by a group of people who call themselves the “ecclesia”, thehousehold of God (the theos, of thetranscendent view). We might want to getclear that the word “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus; it is the role hisdisciples confessed he played, and the one his followers are to play as well. My Christian reflection today isthe practical implication of this week’s story, particularly on the account’sTuesday of that Holy Week before the nightmares of Gethsemane. The book of Luke quotes Jesus saying: “It iswritten, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it ‘a den ofrobbers’” (NIV light edition). Less we take the easyway out, gloss over this part of the story by piously going back to the portals of thetemple and demonizing the taxman, we might look at it from the perspective of2013, and ask the question: who in our time is demeaning persons just becauseof who they are? Who is making the household of God a palace of perdition? In the 60s, onward even today, they are the good folks who discriminate against persons ofcolor. The Civil Rights movement took achunk of our energy and awareness. Today, members of theUnited Methodist Church of the Village in New York City rally to remind thenation that the Supreme Court is reviewing a case involving two ladies whovowed love and affection for each other 42 years ago and remained constant in their fidelity. They solemnized their vows in “marriage” inCanada later (there are now many places where the union is legal) while livingthrough the challenge of multiple sclerosis that took the life of one of theparties. The surviving one inheritedjoint property against which the IRS (yes, Mathilda, the taxman is still with us) is levying a tax of more than $300 grand, acharge it would not make were the relationship hetero. Homophobia is entrenched deep in the officialstructures of our society, and into the recesses of our gentrified souls! The United MethodistChurch as a denomination is on record as being against samesex unions, butindividual Church members from Bishops to laity take the other view, in spite ofthe official policy. We stoke the same flames with our renegade sisters and brothers. Who shall fling theirbodies into the prejudicial barbwires of history? Who dares march into the temple of our Jerusalems? My Nike shoes say, Just Do It! I do. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

3 2

Fwd: OpEd Good Friday
by Jaime R Vergara 29 Mar '13

29 Mar '13

FYI 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: Thu, Mar 28, 2013 7:03 am Subject: OpEd Good Friday GOOD FRIDAY It’s a bleak Holy Weekin Dong Bei. If the Siberian winds arenot howling like midnight on a New England Halloween, the skies are overcastthat hardly a ray of sunlight gets through while the shadow of Batman nooks onmidday’s corner. We are not alone. London was a frozen mush early on in theweek, and the Kremlin made it to the tundra without moving an inch. The freeze is expected to lash out throughAmerica’s northeast from Bar Harbor to the Chesapeake Bay. We had a respite of asun last Sunday. Young men braved theelements and bounced the ball on twenty hoops in the courtyard. I was not yet ready to let go of mitt, muff,and muffler. The dudes dribbled on nearly bared chests in the still frozen air. My instincts paid off. Within two hours Sunday afternoon, while atthe street market, what started as flakes meandering down like pillow puffsturned quickly into a snowstorm. North of us in theHarbin Winter Festival, the ice sculptures are still intact and its tourist tradeis doing brisk business as the “Moscow of the East” lives off intricateremnants of its Byzantine past, its central commercial district with itscobblestones reminiscent of horse drawn carriages of bygone days, convertedinto pedestrian traffic, leaving an old world feel to the revelers ofoverflowing malt brew on brightly lit ice lanterns. The solemnity of theChristian Holy Week is, however, hardly evident in post-1949 China of secularhumanism, in spite of the cultural resurgence of its three major philosophies –Confucianism (ru), Buddhism (shi), and Taoism (dao). Artifacts and sacredsites have taken in of late considerable market values. The Chinese vaunted aptitude for mathematicshas ¥uan coloration. Today, ours is a quietudeof the soul as years of conditioning in Christian dramaturgy revives images ofHosanna’s palm fronds to early sunrise religious services singing hymns of joyon the triumph of the empty tomb. Protestants, inured to the automatic happy ending of Hollywood celluloidin the era of Ike, tend to skip the high point of this weeks paradoxicallytitled “Good Friday”. Penitent souls andflagellating bodies trek to the top of Mt. Tapuchao this day, as some barren fieldin Guagua, Pampanga grossly reenact the Roman crucifixion so vividly portrayedin Mel Gibson’s overwrought movie, the Passionof the Christ, turned into a community spectacle in Bavaria’s Oberammergauas it relives every decade since the 1600s the stations of the cross. In Christiandramaturgy, the week’s high point is the innocent Jesus willfully allowing thesword and the lance to let him hang, “for the sins of the many” (in theguilt-ridden language of Paul). TheRoman Catholic Church drapes its altar black at 3 pm on Friday, and calls theday “Good”. Rational minds of theReformation raise an eyebrow having forsaken the practice of Abraham’swillingness to sacrifice his son as barbaric, with cynics seeing the practiceno different from fathers sending their sons to war. Still, the modern world has also condemnedthe virtue of martyrdom as a mere justification of the Empire oppressing theoutcast, the rebel, and the marginalized. But the English“Good”, of the same etymology as the word “G-O-D”, derivative of the Teuton’s“Gott”, is used in the King James translation of the Biblical YHWH, (literallymeans, self-evident) the highest good, summumbonum of Aquinas and Kant. Cut to the chase. Good Friday is an affirmation that life isgood just the way it is, woof, warts and all. In today’s language, it is a mishmash of cause, chance, and choice. The religious seeks cause in a Supreme deity. The dice-thrower lights incense for goodfortune, fate and destiny. The democratizedhuman looks at the power of choice. Thediversity and the many combinations of the three mark the current state of ourhumanity. Europe, preoccupiedwith Time, sought clarity on one’s relationship to yesterday, today, andtomorrow. It came up with yesterday asdone, irretrievable and finished. It is“forgiven”. Tomorrow is open. One needs only to decide. Today is in the pulse of “amazing grace”,unconditionally accepted. Its totalitycan be lifted high, like the ostia andthe vino, and celebrated. The Christian’s common meal of the Upper Roominvokes: “this is my body, … this is my blood, that is given for you”. It constitutes the Christian essence of whathas since become the Eucharist. East Asia is not aspreoccupied with Time as it is with Space. The taiji of ancient China hasthe yin-yang in the middle surroundedby 8 trigrams covering all points of the compass. The important words are geographical inmeaning, thus, bei = north and jing = city, gives us Beijing. But there is a fifth cardinal point to thefamiliar east, west, north, and south designation. The fifth direction is the wu fang, the Center. It is no accident that Chinese callthemselves Zhongguoren, the people ofthe middle realm! Silence at thetranquil center is the Good Friday of East Asian spirituality. The dynamic stillness in the middle of the taiji is the loci of profound humanitysince discovered in the interfaith exchange of the East and the West. The blackout of Christendom’s Good Fridayechoes in the sounds of silence of meditation and contemplation. My humanness this dayis bowed. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

4 3

3/28/13, Spong: Did the Crucifixion Take Place at the Time of Passover?
by Ellie Stock 28 Mar '13

28 Mar '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Did the Crucifixion Take Place at the Time of Passover? Mark, the earliest gospel to be written (ca. 72 CE) locates the crucifixion of Jesus in the season of Passover, suggesting that the “Last Supper” was a Passover meal. Matthew, the second gospel to be written (ca, 82-85), and Luke, the third (ca. 88-93), follow Mark’s lead and between the three of them the Passover-crucifixion connection was installed deeply into the Christian tradition. Most people today assume this connection and think of it as historically real. John, the last gospel to be written (ca. 95-100), destabilizes this connection, but only very slightly. He says the “Last Supper” was not the Passover meal, but one eaten in preparation for or in anticipation of the Passover. This new detail in the passion narrative enabled John to present the crucifixion of Jesus as occurring at the exact time that the Passover lamb was being slaughtered, tying together quite firmly the symbol of Jesus as the “new Passover lamb.” This means that in John the Passover meal was eaten in the evening of the day Jesus was crucified. With this slight variation, all of the gospels locate the crucifixion in the Passover season. When we go back into the pre-gospel writing period of Christian history, however, we discover that in the years before 70 this connection is not at all so firm. Paul, who wrote between 51 and 64, is the first New Testament writer to describe the “Last Supper.” He does so in I Corinthians 11 (ca. 54). There Paul writes: “On the night he (Jesus) was ‘betrayed,’ he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it.” Three things are of note about this first biblical reference to that final meal that was to become so important in Christian history and practice. First, there is no suggestion whatsoever in this Pauline epistle that this meal that “occurred on the night he was betrayed” was a “Passover meal.” Second, the word we have translated as “betrayed” literally means “handed over” and that is not quite the same as “betrayed.” Third, there is no hint anywhere in the entire Pauline corpus that he knew the story of Judas Iscariot and no suggestion that he was aware that the “handing over” of Jesus was done by one of the twelve. So, in the earliest layer of New Testament writing that we have there is no connection between the betrayal, the Passover meal and the crucifixion. We then are led to wonder whether this connection had not yet been made or whether Paul simply omitted this important detail. Continuing to search in the writings of Paul, however, we do discover that Jesus and the Passover lamb had been symbolically linked, probably liturgically, by Paul. In I Cor. 5:7, the apostle writes: “Christ our new paschal lamb (or Passover) has been sacrificed for us.” This verse points to the established fact that in the early days of the Christian movement, the liturgy of the synagogue was the context in which the Jesus story was told and understood. Not only had Jesus been coupled liturgically with the Passover lamb, but in other gospels sources he was also identified with the sin-bearing scapegoat and the sacrificial lamb of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Matthew’s narrative of the “Sermon on the Mount” is set against background of the observance of Shavuot, the Jewish day of Pentecost, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. John the Baptist in each of the synoptics appears to proclaim the message identified in the synagogue with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The story of Jesus’ transfiguration contains elements that link it to the Jewish celebration of Dedication, now called Hanukkah. It appears that the use of the symbols of the Jewish liturgical year to interpret the life of Jesus was a very early pattern. Understanding Jesus as the Passover Lamb was just one more of these. So, we ask: Did the liturgical connection between Jesus and the Passover lamb cause the story of the crucifixion of Jesus to be moved into the season of Passover or was the season of Passover actually the time in which the crucifixion occurred? My study over the years has increasingly led me to conclude that the crucifixion and the season of Passover were not originally attached historically in any way, but that the crucifixion was drawn into the orbit of that season as an interpretive device. Let me cite the data that has lead me to that conclusion. Mark, who gave us the first account of the crucifixion that we possess, says that it was the Passover that drew Jesus to Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion. The dates of Passover are 14-15 Nisan, which would locate it on our calendars in late March or early April. He also says, however, that a week prior to the crucifixion Jesus rode into Jerusalem in what we call “the Palm Sunday Procession,” at which time the crowds waved “leafy branches” and shouted words from the 118th psalm, “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is the one that comes in the name of the Lord.” A week before Passover would place that procession even earlier in either March or April. If one is familiar with plant life in that part of the Middle East, one would know that there are no leaves on the branches that early in the spring. That is the first crack in suggesting that the connection between crucifixion and Passover might not be of history. Leafy branches are a strange Passover season detail. It is interesting to note what both Matthew and Luke do with this detail, since both of them had Mark in front of them when they wrote and their gospels represent both a borrowing from and an expansion of Mark. Matthew seems recognize that there is a problem with leafy branches at that time of the year, so he removes the leaves from his narrative and has the crowd only wave “branches.” It is, however, only the leaves that wave, leafless branches are just sticks. One suspects that Matthew recognized that something about the inclusion of “leafy branches” just did not quite fit and so he sought to make a clarifying adjustment. When Luke, about a decade after Matthew, wrote his account of Palm Sunday, he also seemed to sense an incongruity and he responded by omitting both the leaves and the branches. Luke rather has the crowd lay down their garments before Jesus as the procession unfolds. Even this detail, however, points to a warmer season than early spring. One is not likely in the “holy land” to shed one’s outer garments in late March or early April. There is still another story in Mark’s passion narrative that raises a similar question. After the Palm Sunday procession, Mark tells us that Jesus went to the Temple, looked around, saw the money changers and left with his disciples, going to the village of Bethany about two miles away to spend the night. The next day, Mark says, Jesus went back to Jerusalem, this time to confront the money changers in the Temple. On this return trip Mark says that Jesus was hungry and, seeing a fig tree in the distance, went to it in search of fruit. No fruit was found for this is late March or early April and no fig tree in the northern hemisphere produces fruit in the early spring. Mark acknowledged this fact by saying “it was not the season for figs!” Mark tells us, nonetheless, that the disappointed Jesus laid a curse on this fig tree for the sin of not producing figs in March! At the very least, that was an un-Jesus like act. Jesus and the disciples then continued to Jerusalem where he cleansed the Temple of those who bought and sold animals, returning to Bethany that afternoon by the same route. On the trip home, Mark says that Jesus and his disciples came to this fig tree, which by now had shriveled and died. It is a strange story that raises many questions. At the very least, if this story had been set in the fall of the year some of its strangeness would vanish. Was that then its original setting? Was it moved to the early spring at the time when the crucifixion was also moved to the early spring? Once again, it is interesting to see what Matthew and Luke do when they come to this Marcan story. Matthew collapses it into a single episode not separated by the events at the Temple. It is as if he were embarrassed and wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. Luke simply omits the story. Some suggest that he turned it into his “Parable of the Fig Tree.” Thus in both Matthew and Luke there appears to be some “dis-ease” about the time of the year in which the story of the crucifixion has been placed, which suggests that perhaps the season of Passover was not the original setting. Finally, we note that in the Jewish liturgical year, the harvest or fall festival, called Sukkoth, has some activities connected with it that the Christians clearly borrowed and moved from the fall to spring, where these details did not quite fit. At Sukkoth a procession through the streets and to the Temple was a major part of the celebration. The worshipers in that procession carried in their right hands a bunch of leafy branches made up of myrtle, willow and palm called a lulab, which they waved while marching. They also shouted the words of the 118th Psalm. This was, however, a fall harvest festival. The gospel writers clearly moved the symbols from Sukkoth in the fall and placed them, rather awkwardly, into the spring season of Passover. These are the details that have convince me that the time of the crucifixion might also have been shifted, driven by the power of the symbol of Jesus understood as the “new Passover lamb.” These connections were developed liturgically and homiletically over the years. In the first Passover, the blood of the Paschal lamb was sprinkled on the doorposts of Jewish houses on the night of the Exodus, when the angel of death swept through the land of Egypt to kill the first born male in every household. When the death angel saw the blood of the paschal lamb on the doorposts, the angel would “pass over” those houses as if repelled by the blood of the lamb. To the blood of the lamb was attributed death-defying power. The followers of Jesus developed that analogy by suggesting that the blood of the new paschal lamb on the cross, understood as the doorposts of the world, now repelled the power of death from the followers of Jesus. It was a powerful, symbolic story, true, but not literally or historically accurate. In it, however, we find a clue to reading the gospels non-literally, for this is the way they were written and I am convinced that this is the way they were intended to be read. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Connie and Dave, via the Internet, write: Question: At church today, the pastor read a section from the Ephesians. That got me thinking. I presume each of Paul's letters addressed as they were to individual faith groups in different cities, were saved by each group and shared occasionally within that group. Who pulled all of Paul's letters together from the individual groups and when did he do that? Answer: Dear Connie & Dave, Yours is a very good question. I need to address it in two parts. First, there are 14 epistles in the New Testament that, at some point in Christian history, have had Pauline authorship claimed for them. Only seven of them are now generally recognized as having come from the hand of Paul, who wrote approximately between the years of 51-64 CE. Those seven authentic works of Paul are: 1. I Thessalonians 5. Romans 2. Galatians 6. Philemon 3. I Corinthians 7. Philippians 4. II Corinthians This means that the following epistles are not the authentic works of Paul: 1. Colossians 5. II Timothy 2. Ephesians 6. Titus 3. II Thessalonians 7. Hebrews 4. I Timothy Of these, Colossians, Ephesians and II Thessalonians appear to have been written ten or more years after Paul’s death and perhaps by those who would have thought of themselves as Paul’s disciples and they may well reflect some Pauline insights. I and II Timothy and Titus were written more than a generation after the life of Paul had come to an end and reveal a kind of developed ecclesiastical structure that Paul never knew and they regard Paul as a revered elder statesman and not the controversial person that he most surely was. The Epistle to the Hebrews is not an epistle, but a sermon, and it could never have come from the pen of Paul in its style, its vocabulary and in its point of view. There are other things that need to be observed like the two letters to the Corinthians appear to be composites of at least four letters, certainly not two. The last chapter of Romans appears to be a new ending added to that epistle after the life of Paul and nowhere in the epistle to the Ephesians does it suggest that this letter was addressed to the church in Ephesus. Conjecture, informed but still conjecture, is that when the idea developed in the decade after Paul’s death to bind Paul’s letters into a single volume to be distributed to all the churches a cover letter was written to commend them. This cover letter was the essence of Ephesians. The first stop of this volume of letters was in Ephesus and so the cover epistle received that name. Second, basic biblical scholarship would challenge the way we talk about these epistles in church services. In my parish church, the lay readers continue to say, “A Reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians” or, “A Reading from Paul’s Letter to Timothy.“ I mutter under my breath, “He did not write it.” Maybe someday churches will bring contemporary scholarship into liturgy. Perhaps these answers to your question will help. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements ProgressiveChristianity.org wishes you and yours an enlightened and meaningful Easter! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 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

1 0

Re: [Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Good Friday
by Del Morril 27 Mar '13

27 Mar '13

Jaime, you can be quite poetic and intellectually savvy, at the same time! Thanks. Del Del Hunter Morrill 3217 North Mason Avenue Tacoma WA 98407-5419 H: (253) 752-1506; W: (253) 383-5757 <mailto:delhmor@wamail.net> delhmor(a)wamail.net Web site: www. hypnocenter.com The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. (Joseph Campbell) _____ From: oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jaime R Vergara Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 4:12 PM To: oe(a)wedgeblade.net Subject: [Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Good Friday FYI 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: Thu, Mar 28, 2013 7:03 am Subject: OpEd Good Friday GOOD FRIDAY Its a bleak Holy Week in Dong Bei. If the Siberian winds are not howling like midnight on a New England Halloween, the skies are overcast that hardly a ray of sunlight gets through while the shadow of Batman nooks on middays corner. We are not alone. London was a frozen mush early on in the week, and the Kremlin made it to the tundra without moving an inch. The freeze is expected to lash out through Americas northeast from Bar Harbor to the Chesapeake Bay. We had a respite of a sun last Sunday. Young men braved the elements and bounced the ball on twenty hoops in the courtyard. I was not yet ready to let go of mitt, muff, and muffler. The dudes dribbled on nearly bared chests in the still frozen air. My instincts paid off. Within two hours Sunday afternoon, while at the street market, what started as flakes meandering down like pillow puffs turned quickly into a snowstorm. North of us in the Harbin Winter Festival, the ice sculptures are still intact and its tourist trade is doing brisk business as the Moscow of the East lives off intricate remnants of its Byzantine past, its central commercial district with its cobblestones reminiscent of horse drawn carriages of bygone days, converted into pedestrian traffic, leaving an old world feel to the revelers of overflowing malt brew on brightly lit ice lanterns. The solemnity of the Christian Holy Week is, however, hardly evident in post-1949 China of secular humanism, in spite of the cultural resurgence of its three major philosophies Confucianism (ru), Buddhism (shi), and Taoism (dao). Artifacts and sacred sites have taken in of late considerable market values. The Chinese vaunted aptitude for mathematics has ¥uan coloration. Today, ours is a quietude of the soul as years of conditioning in Christian dramaturgy revives images of Hosannas palm fronds to early sunrise religious services singing hymns of joy on the triumph of the empty tomb. Protestants, inured to the automatic happy ending of Hollywood celluloid in the era of Ike, tend to skip the high point of this weeks paradoxically titled Good Friday. Penitent souls and flagellating bodies trek to the top of Mt. Tapuchao this day, as some barren field in Guagua, Pampanga grossly reenact the Roman crucifixion so vividly portrayed in Mel Gibsons overwrought movie, the Passion of the Christ, turned into a community spectacle in Bavarias Oberammergau as it relives every decade since the 1600s the stations of the cross. In Christian dramaturgy, the weeks high point is the innocent Jesus willfully allowing the sword and the lance to let him hang, for the sins of the many (in the guilt-ridden language of Paul). The Roman Catholic Church drapes its altar black at 3 pm on Friday, and calls the day Good. Rational minds of the Reformation raise an eyebrow having forsaken the practice of Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son as barbaric, with cynics seeing the practice no different from fathers sending their sons to war. Still, the modern world has also condemned the virtue of martyrdom as a mere justification of the Empire oppressing the outcast, the rebel, and the marginalized. But the English Good, of the same etymology as the word G-O-D, derivative of the Teutons Gott, is used in the King James translation of the Biblical YHWH, (literally means, self-evident) the highest good, summum bonum of Aquinas and Kant. Cut to the chase. Good Friday is an affirmation that life is good just the way it is, woof, warts and all. In todays language, it is a mishmash of cause, chance, and choice. The religious seeks cause in a Supreme deity. The dice-thrower lights incense for good fortune, fate and destiny. The democratized human looks at the power of choice. The diversity and the many combinations of the three mark the current state of our humanity. Europe, preoccupied with Time, sought clarity on ones relationship to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It came up with yesterday as done, irretrievable and finished. It is forgiven. Tomorrow is open. One needs only to decide. Today is in the pulse of amazing grace, unconditionally accepted. Its totality can be lifted high, like the ostia and the vino, and celebrated. The Christians common meal of the Upper Room invokes: this is my body, this is my blood, that is given for you. It constitutes the Christian essence of what has since become the Eucharist. East Asia is not as preoccupied with Time as it is with Space. The taiji of ancient China has the yin-yang in the middle surrounded by 8 trigrams covering all points of the compass. The important words are geographical in meaning, thus, bei = north and jing = city, gives us Beijing. But there is a fifth cardinal point to the familiar east, west, north, and south designation. The fifth direction is the wu fang, the Center. It is no accident that Chinese call themselves Zhongguoren, the people of the middle realm! Silence at the tranquil center is the Good Friday of East Asian spirituality. The dynamic stillness in the middle of the taiji is the loci of profound humanity since discovered in the interfaith exchange of the East and the West. The blackout of Christendoms Good Friday echoes in the sounds of silence of meditation and contemplation. My humanness this day is bowed. <http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031> j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

1 0

Death of Gordon Cosby
by Lynda Cock 24 Mar '13

24 Mar '13

Forrest Craver sent the message below about Gordon Cosby's death. During our time in the WDC House and during the Local Church Experiment, the Cocks, Cravers, and others were pleased to have Rev. Gordon Cosby, co-founder of the Church of the Savior in WDC, speak and be part of our House Church. This was especially significant for us because Gordon and Mary Cosby had been the influential and challenging leadership of a college CSM (Christian Student Movement) retreat that we attended back in 1960. After seminary and in an early parish, we studied the books written about the Church of the Savior, as well as the article in Time magazine about the Ecumenical Institute. We were in Virginia at another congregation when Bill Newkirk and Carl Ennis visited, urging us to recruit a PLC and then an RS-I. So we were torn between Church of Savior and EI. EI provided a place to live. Trusting the mystery and George Holcombe, Jim Addington (PLC), Marilyn Miller, and Phil Townley (RS-I for our parishioners), we made our big journey to the West Side in a blizzard during March 1969 ... 44 years ago this month. The rest is history. Journey on, Gordon (and Joseph), with deep gratitude for your combined history-changing work. Lynda Cock (and John) -----Original Message----- From: Forrest Craver [mailto:forrestecraver@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 11:34 AM To: JPC/LLC Subject: Please post this list servs Our colleague Rev. Gordon Cosby, a 4th generation Baptist minister ,died yesterday. A four decade colleague of JWM, every summer Gordon and JWM would meet at Kirkridge with Oliver Nelson to plot church renewal strategies. Gordon's obit will appear in today or tomorrow's Washington Post. His memorial service will be held at Foundry UMC in DC.

5 5

3/21/13, Spong: A Pope is Chosen - Hopes Rise for Change
by Ellie Stock 21 Mar '13

21 Mar '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR A Pope is Chosen -Hopes Rise for Change His name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but the world will know him as Pope Francis I. He was a surprise selection by the Conclave of Cardinals voting in the Sistine Chapel and he received the required majority of 77 votes on the third ballot cast, a unifying fact. He is from the “Third World,” that is, he is from the southern hemisphere, where growth in adherence to the Roman Catholic faith is still being experienced, but he was not one of those third world cardinals around which rumors of a papal possibility had circulated. He is largely an outsider to Vatican affairs and to Vatican politics. That suggests, I believe and hope, that the College of Cardinals is no longer willing to place the governance of their church into the hands of those who appear to be either tolerant of or complicit in the scandals that have marked the Vatican in recent years, both in the area of finances and in the practice of morality. He is known as a champion of the poor, but he is cool to what has been called “Liberation Theology.” Nonetheless, Leonardo Boff, the Catholic theologian most identified with liberation theology, has expressed both hope and some degree of pleasure at his election. He comes to the papacy at a time when the credibility of religious institutions, in general and of the Roman Catholic Church in particular, is at an all time low. Will he be up to the challenges he faces? Only time will tell. People say of this ancient institution that the Roman Church moves by centuries not by decades, years or months. Historically that has been true. In an age of instant communications, jet travel and an interdependent world, however, that pace may be a luxury no longer available to this Church. Certainly the world has lost patience with its reticence to confront, purge and overcome the systemic abuse of children and young people the world over. I use the word “systemic” quite deliberately. Priestly abuse is not the isolated behavior of a few bad priests. It is far too deep and widespread to be dismissed on that basis. It reveals something systemically wrong, something systemically sick about the very culture that permeates this Church. This sickness expresses itself not only in the abuse, but also in the widespread ecclesiastical cover up of that abuse. The cover up is as revealing as the abuse itself and it reaches now into the highest levels of that Church’s life. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, at the invitation and with the approval of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, was allowed to find sanctuary in the Vatican from criminal prosecution in Massachusetts. He was given a timely and propitious “promotion” to a top Vatican position, where he lives today in honor and dignity, when he should be an inmate in jail and facing the public humiliation his deeds have earned for him. As long as Bernard Law remains in this position, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, at its very highest level, cannot pretend that it is not still engaging in a massive cover up. Prior to Benedict’s retirement, both the episodes of sex abuse and its facilitating cover up had broken into the ranks of the cardinals and these charges were actually nipping at the heels of the former Archbishop of Munich, who is now known to the world as Benedict XVI. The Cardinal of Los Angeles, Roger Mahoney, has been revealed as an active participant in deception, lies and cover up. The Archbishop of Scotland, Keith O’Brien, has resigned amid admitted acts of sexual impropriety with other priests or former priests. The Australian bishop, Geoffrey Robinson, who headed up that country’s investigation of the crimes of child abuse by Catholic clergy, was so thorough in his report that it shook the security of the Catholic hierarchy. Instead of acting on his far ranging recommendations, the hierarchy marginalized this bishop and proceeded to appoint as the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, a man so close to those scandals that Bishop Robinson resigned, saying that he could not in honesty pledge his obedience to the Vatican’s appointment. Pope Francis I will not be given the luxury of centuries of time to confront this cancer infecting every part of this Church’s life. He has only days or weeks to signal that he will move to clear up the tragedy that is killing the life of his Church. That cancer surely requires that he also look at the other vital subjects in the life of the Church: issues like the requirement of priestly celibacy, the way women are defined and treated and this Church’s stated public attitude toward gay and lesbian people, which places into a context of rank hypocrisy the widespread presence of gay men, not only in the priesthood, but in this Church’s hierarchy itself. Does the requirement of celibacy, a twelfth century addition to Christian practice, serve to invite sexually unhealthy and repressed people into the ranks of the ordained? Does that fact not mean that while the abuse issue is tragic, it should not be surprising? Do we not reap what we have sown? Does the ban on birth control and the refusal to consider women as fit candidates for ordination rise out of a misogynist fear of women that has resulted in the putdown of women through the ages? Can this Church with credibility still make a virtue out of this patriarchal sin? Does the continued attitude in this Church, expressed in the publicly stated definition of homosexual people as “deviant,” have any credibility in the world of science and medicine? Does that definition not rise out of the great anxiety that the world will someday discover that through the ages, the celibate priesthood of this Church has provided the largest closet in the developed world in which gay men could hide from both marriage and persecution? Homosexuality, we now know, is no more a choice than is skin color, gender, blue eyes or left-handedness; yet the prejudice against homosexuality, now largely gone in the secular world, continues to linger in this Church, encouraged by the condemnation that continues to emanate from the hierarchy. Dare we hope that this new knowledge might somehow permeate the structures of the Catholic Church and find expression in this new Pope? It took 400 years for the Vatican to admit that Galileo was right! In this day of instant communications waiting for centuries to address a public problem is no longer an option. The perpetuation of sexual ignorance, revealed in dated sexual prejudices, can no longer be tolerated by the thinking world. Hopes burn brightly at the beginning of every new administration, whether it be religious or political, and Cardinal Bergoglio appears to bring many things to his new position. Because prior to his election he was an outsider, he comes to this position with little baggage and thus he has the freedom to act. Because he is from outside of Europe, he brings a new inclusiveness to Catholic Christianity. Because he is a “Latino,” he represents the largest concentration of Catholic worshipers in the world today. Forty percent of all Catholics today are “Latinos.” One third of the Catholics in the United States are “Latinos.” Because he is a Jesuit, he brings to his office the Jesuit commitment to intellectual rigor and honesty. Because he has demonstrated a commitment to the poor, he brings a radical critique to the kind of capitalism that does not see or understand that a capitalism that is unfettered by human concerns and needs, will always and inevitably produce an economic system where wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few and poverty is increasingly the destiny of the masses. Political instability and revolutions are the price the world will pay for such insensitivity. In America today, for example, right wing politicians oppose with vehemence a fair taxation policy, preferring rather a policy that protects the wealthy with tax loopholes that the wealthy had the power to adopt and now refuse to surrender. They seek to balance the American deficit by cutting education, welfare and Medicare resources for the poor to frightening levels, failing to remember that the primary causes of the present deficit are two unfunded wars, which these same people chose to fight and for which they refused to pay. The deficit was then expanded by an enormous economic collapse driven by the greed of the wealthy. Because the advocates of these fiscal policies also tend to be the supporters of such social issues as opposition to equality for women, minimizing both birth control and abortion and supporting the continued oppression and injustice toward gay and lesbian people, their moral culpability is also in question. This Pope will have a choice to make. Will his commitment to the poor transcend his commitment to these outdated cultural prejudices? In a complex world, ethical decisions are not always clear and neat, and uninformed ethical decisions can never be sustained. Cardinal Bergoglio chose the name Francis. Is that a hint of things to come? Francis was an iconic saint whose life embraced two distinct foci. He was, first, uncompromisingly dedicated to the poor and the oppressed. Second, he was a lover of nature. He talked of the sun, the moon, the animals and nature itself as his brothers, his sisters. Does this presage the commitment on the part of this Pope to address the issue of climate change and the incessant rape of the earth in search of more corporate profits? Will he lend his voice and his influence to the saving of this planet Earth, “our island home?” Pope Francis is not known as a theologian as was his predecessor, but as a Jesuit will he give his still considerable intellect to the modern task of rethinking the basic theological symbols through which the Christian faith presents itself to the modern world? The concepts of “Original Sin” and the fall from perfection, for example, make little sense in a world that knows that we have evolved from single cells to self-conscious humanity over billions of years? How can modern Christianity escape the religion of control, which focuses ultimately on reward, punishment and the final judgment, when we recognize human interdependence and the survival instincts that are part of our being and our biology, not part of our doing and our moral choices? The tasks confronting the Christian faith in our time are massive. We welcome this new leader on the world’s stage as a partner in addressing these issues. We remind him, however, that he will not be measured by the beauty of his words. As the Bible says, it is by the fruit it produces that the tree is judged. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Daniel Giullotta, via Facebook, writes: Question: I am a big fan of your writings and books. I am curious about what you imagine will be the future of the priesthood and pastorship in churches. What is the future of the clergy? I have been wondering if my calling is to serve as a priest, but I am unsure. What advice would you give someone discerning their calling to the ordained life? Answer: Dear Dan, Thank you for your question. Let me begin my response to you by saying that I have now been ordained for 57 years and if I had a chance to live my life over again, I would do it exactly the same way. I would seek ordination once more. I have loved the things that my priestly vocation gave to me: an opportunity to be deeply involved in the personal lives of many, a significantly challenging intellectual agenda as I sought to make Christianity make sense to my time and place in history, a platform from which to speak to the issues of the world in light of my faith, a chance to help people grow from childish religious images to much more mature ones and a chance to practice daily the faith I still passionately believe. This is not to say that the next century will be easy for people in my profession. There are many reasons to suggest that institutional Christianity is dying and that this death is irreversible. I do not think the church forms of today will support the faith of tomorrow. I believe that much of what people think of as traditional Christianity today will be seen as invalid tomorrow. This includes creeds, liturgy and the way the Bible is interpreted. We live in an era of a huge paradigm shift, which, if managed adequately, makes this a very exciting time to be a both a Christian and to be in a leadership role. If this prospect scares you then I think you should seek a career in something else, but if it excites you, there is nothing more important than to be a part of this transition. I suggest you go to a pastor you admire and discuss these things with him or her as you seek to discern your future. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Are you looking for progressive, relevant liturgy to support your evolving faith community? Click here to discover an international forum for sharing liturgy and our free liturgical resources! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 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

2 1

ST Thursday OpEd FYI
by Jaime R Vergara 21 Mar '13

21 Mar '13

El Papa Francisco de Argentina Cardinal Jorge MarioBorgoglio is at home in many places on both sides of Andes where many Italianscongregate in numbers from Lima to Sao Paolo. He is the new Pope of Roman Catholic Christendom, hailed as originatingfrom geography way off the shadows of the southern Alps though the genesevidently originated from the same wellsprings of yonder Romans. Habemus Papam was false alarm in satirist New Yorker Borowitz’ account after thefifth ballot as cardinals allegedly shoveled incriminating papers into thefurnace in deference to a new Pope who should not be saddled with all evidenceof indiscretions by his predecessors. The levity was appropriate as Rome tries to distance itself from thesoot on its hands, especially after the watch of former Cardinal Ratzinger theHitler youth storm-trooper, most recently resigned Pope Benedict XVI. Pope John XXIII whoattempted to open the windows of the stale Basilica that shrouded theMagisterium drew us to the arcane universe of Christian theology. The spirit ofthe Vatican II Council was short-lived, not unlike the Prague Spring before theRussian military hardware rumbled down the cobblestones. I was raised inReformation Christianity brought by Protestant Evangelicals into the shores ofPea Eye after WWII. Given an inquisitivebent from the scientific ethos, I was not too enamored with the blatantsuperstition and fake piety of my institutional Church, so a shaking of thefoundations of a stodgy cathedral of medieval thought came as welcomed news. Superstition in anOther World beyond as an object of Christian hope came into sharp question fromthe pastoral voices of Barth and Bultmann, Tillich and Bonhoeffer, the Niebuhrbrothers and Europe’s existentialists who focused on the here-and-now. Coming out of the influence of Calvin,Luther, and Wesley, I was at home with reforms. We took on thepanoramic view of two millennia, from the Augustine’s confessions, through Francisof Assissi’s meanderings, to the heights of Tomas de Aquino’s flights, on tothe militant resolve of Ignatius de Loyola. The tableau blossomed with Malachi Martin and Andrew Greeley, and wetook seriously the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and MarshallMacLuhan, awed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the Cosmic Christ andGustavo Guttierrez’ political liberation motif. Vatican Spring tookits toll as Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, and Edward Schillebeecks retreated to thesounds of silence. Interfaith dialoguedid not go far even with Newman, Nouwen, and Merton. Matthew Fox anglicized the frock, and if wehope for another Pope Joan (13thcentury), we need to become conversant with the works of Mary Daly andElizabeth Fiorenza! (An inquiringcolleague who asked who our papal candidate was at the onset of the electionheard me say: “They do not allow Nuns on the list, yet!”) We stopped over BuenasAires from Rio to Santiago in ’79, just before Brazil enacted its Amnestyprogram to shield military atrocities from prosecution, and a few hours beforeGeneral Pinochet of Chile got a diplomatic slap on the face when FerdinandMarcos of the Philippines canceled his stopover in Manila after a visit inFiji on his way to China. Being one of the rarenon-Aryan persons in the airport at the time, and with the goose-steppingsecurity all over the place reminiscent of films of the Wehrmacht, we hadpimples of anxiety as we could not wait to get out of the place. The last time I had such feelings was when Iwas thrown against the wall on the westside of Chicago for walking a white girlto the station. Members of theInterpol in Santiago were more jovial. They said: “Who would be stupidenough to come to Santiago on a Philippine passport hours after el Presidente’strip is canceled by Manila’s absence of spine?” T’was me, and I am not generally that innocent! Happily, the village I went to a few hoursout of the city was a stronghold of the assassinated Allende, so I became aninstant hero to the anti-Pinochet crowd, instead. This is all to saythat Pope Francis ascends a pathway rich with tradition that can beembraced. We became familiar with PedroArrupe’s Jesuits while perusing Aquinas Summa. We had been friendly to Jesuits since, appreciating their work in Micronesia. It was not long after Gary Bradley, S.J. inSaipan gave up the ghost while lifting the elements of the Eucharist that I surrenderedmy institutional ghost as well. Arrupe, a Spanishathlete and medical practitioner before he took the vows, was one of eightJesuit priests within the A-bomb zone when it dropped in Hiroshima. He and his Order brothers survived and turnedthe splendid chapel into an emergency haven dealing with the medical andpsychological needs of the survivors. We recall Pope Francisfirst act after the election. Hereturned to the Cardinals’ hotel on the bus instead of taking the Papallimousine that would have been perfectly his purview. Not unlike Lee Kuan Yew’s style while guidingthe helms of Singapore living in a two-room apartment rather than a palace or amansion, Pope Francis’ in Buenos Aires followed his saint’s style sans the opulence of a Prince of theChurch characterized elsewhere. Hey, we can say Amen with feelings, again! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

2 1