May 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Re: [Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 14, Issue 15
by Jaime R Vergara 20 May '13

20 May '13

Nice timing. Had the following in the works when Terry's announcement came. Should be in the Wednesday edition: UrbanGreen We look down from the eleventh floor of the FriendshipVilla residence of foreign faculty members and students to a four-storybuilding that stands between us and the six-lane traffic near ShenyangAerospace University’s south gate. Welamented last year’s start of construction when what used to be a grass-coveredlot the size of a football field fronting our building suddenly got the wholecomplement of earth movers, scoopers, bulldozers, cement mixers, and twotowering cranes that moved workloads around. That would have been about the time our Belgianteacher colleague handed us a paper cup with water and a floating sliver ofgrass that, he said, “will thrivewithout requiring much attention.” We decided that we would at least add plants to ourwindow ledge and get some oxygen processed back into the air. We have since expanded our repertoire ofgreens and have made the tending of them an integral part of our daily play-attentionexercise. Worked stopped at the construction site over thewinter allowing for the cement to mature, and this week, the crane startedmoving again. Styrofoam was laid on therooftop covered with what we thought from a distance as black tar. I assumed the addition would control indoorclimate in insulating the building from the six months of cold as the heat-absorbentblack tar blankets the warmth inside. The construction that includes two five-story towers atthe south gate blocks traffic but the ever enterprising Chinese students alwaysmanage to find a short cut, if they have to down a temporary fence to createone, so we follow the beaten path when we exit by foot from the dorm to theroad. Cutting across construction yesterday revealed thatthe “black tar” on the roof is actually rich loam of soil spread over theStyrofoam to grow a rooftop lawn and garden. WOW. Not that it should have surprised us. After all, we are a new satellite city andplanners often get extra credit for adding a touch of urban green into theirplans. Which is just as well. The garden aesthetics will make the new building tolerable for we notedthat buildings in China are not built to last a century. They tend to deteriorate fast. The dilapidatingUniversity Design Department building two blocks west of us have byzantinefeatures, possibly a leftover from the days when Marushka with the babushka and Boris with the shapka-ushanka helped design campusstructures. It will soon come down. We do not have any complaints with the systemic greencare of the common grounds as workers these spring transfer potted plants ofyellow carnation and marigold, tulip and daffodil, lily and gardenia, iris andviolet into planters along the pathways and the road. We already noted the instant forest that isby the soccer field in anticipation of the athletes’ practice during August’sChina Games. It is our care indoor that need some attention, notjust by the hired maintenance help but the “stakeholders”, the ones who use thebuildings, the offices, and the classrooms. (I recall former PSS Commissioner Liz Rechebei savedfor us from her yard a dozen seedlings of ilang-ilangwhile we taught at SVES, which we grew on a hallway corner before transplantingthem into the ground. I know of at leastfour of them that survived; at the time, the plantings were intended foraesthetics and fragrant flowers, as Saipan can be naturally green if we do notmess up mother nature too much). It is altogether different in cold Dong Bei. Keeping our ledge on the 11th floor green with potted plants is an exercise inintentionality as the doing itself becomes a part of our “spiritual” exercise. No, we are not talking about fuzzy-hairyweird religious practice here. We arereferring to the human practice of playing attention to one’s consciousness,the same that we prescribe in our oral English classes where students areenabled to “describe their sense experience, express their feelings, articulatetheir thoughts, and formulate their intentions.” The spirit exercise in this case is the silence beforethe spoken word. Specifically, on theeleventh floor, I have a cutting board where I chop fruit (e.g., mango, orange,banana) and vegetable (e.g., cucumber, carrot, cabbage) peelings while doing myinhaling and exhaling rhythm, then pulp and dry all the organic leftovers byhand, the fruits providing pleasant scents in the room, mix and compost the lotinto the soil that we keep for potted plants. We get our composting and tai chi done in half hour! Fourteen time zones away on the other side of theplanet, in my former home Uptown in Chicago, residents of the GreenRise Intentionalresidential community in the old 8-story Kemper Insurance building on 4750North Sheridan Rd. are keeping the place urban green by Chicago standards. A 20-yr old resident just won a grant todevelop the building’s roof gardens; this, while the roof also will beoutfitted with renewable energy panels. We are clear that there is no stopping climate changein a planet whose humans consume 1.5 times more than old Gaia’s holdingcapacity. We will be content withadaptation measures, whether in Dong Bei or the north shores of LakeMichigan. The systemic care is afunction of our politics; individual care is a function of our spiritexercises. Om! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: oe-request <oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: oe <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Mon, May 20, 2013 11:10 am Subject: OE Digest, Vol 14, Issue 15 Send OE mailing list submissions to oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net You can reach the person managing the list at oe-owner(a)lists.wedgeblade.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of OE digest..." Today's Topics: 1. GreenRise successes at 4750 (Terry Bergdall) 2. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Alan) 3. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (ANN SHAFER) 4. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Joyce Sloan) 5. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Randy Williams) 6. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Randy Williams) 7. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Ellie Stock) 8. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Norm and Judy Lindblad) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:00 -0500 From: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2(a)gmail.com> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)wedgeblade.net>, Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net> Subject: [Oe List ...] GreenRise successes at 4750 Message-ID: <CADJX7K_AgZyWho2jpi5f2ivaq=YDiLbG87jNAc4EEzfkBDiW8A(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Last week, I invited folks to go online and vote for the rooftop garden project coordinated by a young 21-year old member of the GreenRise Intentional Residential Community at 4750, Joseph Taylor. I am delighted to announce that, with your help, this project won the Ford Community Green Grant today at the Chicago Green Festival, A Project of Green America and Global Exchange. There are similar Festivals happening in Los Angeles (Oct 19-20), San Francisco (Nov 9-10), Washington, DC (Sept 21-22), and New York (April 19-21). The prize was for $5,000. If my attachment is successfully transmitted, you can see a photo from the awards ceremony. Joseph is the tall one in the middle surrounded by supporters. On a related note, we also received notice last week that the GreenRise Building "solar project" has been awarded a $359,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to install renewable energy panels on our rooftop. The building at 4750 Sheridan is becoming a VERY high profile embodiment of "green culture" to complement our neighborhood sustainability work across the 77 community areas of Chicago. Terry Bergdall

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Re: [Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 14, Issue 15
by Jaime R Vergara 20 May '13

20 May '13

Nice timing. Had the following in the works when Terry's announcement came. Should be in the Wednesday edition: UrbanGreen We look down from the eleventh floor of the FriendshipVilla residence of foreign faculty members and students to a four-storybuilding that stands between us and the six-lane traffic near ShenyangAerospace University’s south gate. Welamented last year’s start of construction when what used to be a grass-coveredlot the size of a football field fronting our building suddenly got the wholecomplement of earth movers, scoopers, bulldozers, cement mixers, and twotowering cranes that moved workloads around. That would have been about the time our Belgianteacher colleague handed us a paper cup with water and a floating sliver ofgrass that, he said, “will thrivewithout requiring much attention.” We decided that we would at least add plants to ourwindow ledge and get some oxygen processed back into the air. We have since expanded our repertoire ofgreens and have made the tending of them an integral part of our daily play-attentionexercise. Worked stopped at the construction site over thewinter allowing for the cement to mature, and this week, the crane startedmoving again. Styrofoam was laid on therooftop covered with what we thought from a distance as black tar. I assumed the addition would control indoorclimate in insulating the building from the six months of cold as the heat-absorbentblack tar blankets the warmth inside. The construction that includes two five-story towers atthe south gate blocks traffic but the ever enterprising Chinese students alwaysmanage to find a short cut, if they have to down a temporary fence to createone, so we follow the beaten path when we exit by foot from the dorm to theroad. Cutting across construction yesterday revealed thatthe “black tar” on the roof is actually rich loam of soil spread over theStyrofoam to grow a rooftop lawn and garden. WOW. Not that it should have surprised us. After all, we are a new satellite city andplanners often get extra credit for adding a touch of urban green into theirplans. Which is just as well. The garden aesthetics will make the new building tolerable for we notedthat buildings in China are not built to last a century. They tend to deteriorate fast. The dilapidatingUniversity Design Department building two blocks west of us have byzantinefeatures, possibly a leftover from the days when Marushka with the babushka and Boris with the shapka-ushanka helped design campusstructures. It will soon come down. We do not have any complaints with the systemic greencare of the common grounds as workers these spring transfer potted plants ofyellow carnation and marigold, tulip and daffodil, lily and gardenia, iris andviolet into planters along the pathways and the road. We already noted the instant forest that isby the soccer field in anticipation of the athletes’ practice during August’sChina Games. It is our care indoor that need some attention, notjust by the hired maintenance help but the “stakeholders”, the ones who use thebuildings, the offices, and the classrooms. (I recall former PSS Commissioner Liz Rechebei savedfor us from her yard a dozen seedlings of ilang-ilangwhile we taught at SVES, which we grew on a hallway corner before transplantingthem into the ground. I know of at leastfour of them that survived; at the time, the plantings were intended foraesthetics and fragrant flowers, as Saipan can be naturally green if we do notmess up mother nature too much). It is altogether different in cold Dong Bei. Keeping our ledge on the 11th floor green with potted plants is an exercise inintentionality as the doing itself becomes a part of our “spiritual” exercise. No, we are not talking about fuzzy-hairyweird religious practice here. We arereferring to the human practice of playing attention to one’s consciousness,the same that we prescribe in our oral English classes where students areenabled to “describe their sense experience, express their feelings, articulatetheir thoughts, and formulate their intentions.” The spirit exercise in this case is the silence beforethe spoken word. Specifically, on theeleventh floor, I have a cutting board where I chop fruit (e.g., mango, orange,banana) and vegetable (e.g., cucumber, carrot, cabbage) peelings while doing myinhaling and exhaling rhythm, then pulp and dry all the organic leftovers byhand, the fruits providing pleasant scents in the room, mix and compost the lotinto the soil that we keep for potted plants. We get our composting and tai chi done in half hour! Fourteen time zones away on the other side of theplanet, in my former home Uptown in Chicago, residents of the GreenRise Intentionalresidential community in the old 8-story Kemper Insurance building on 4750North Sheridan Rd. are keeping the place urban green by Chicago standards. A 20-yr old resident just won a grant todevelop the building’s roof gardens; this, while the roof also will beoutfitted with renewable energy panels. We are clear that there is no stopping climate changein a planet whose humans consume 1.5 times more than old Gaia’s holdingcapacity. We will be content withadaptation measures, whether in Dong Bei or the north shores of LakeMichigan. The systemic care is afunction of our politics; individual care is a function of our spiritexercises. Om! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: oe-request <oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: oe <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Mon, May 20, 2013 11:10 am Subject: OE Digest, Vol 14, Issue 15 Send OE mailing list submissions to oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net You can reach the person managing the list at oe-owner(a)lists.wedgeblade.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of OE digest..." Today's Topics: 1. GreenRise successes at 4750 (Terry Bergdall) 2. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Alan) 3. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (ANN SHAFER) 4. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Joyce Sloan) 5. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Randy Williams) 6. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Randy Williams) 7. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Ellie Stock) 8. Re: GreenRise successes at 4750 (Norm and Judy Lindblad) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:00 -0500 From: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2(a)gmail.com> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)wedgeblade.net>, Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net> Subject: [Oe List ...] GreenRise successes at 4750 Message-ID: <CADJX7K_AgZyWho2jpi5f2ivaq=YDiLbG87jNAc4EEzfkBDiW8A(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Last week, I invited folks to go online and vote for the rooftop garden project coordinated by a young 21-year old member of the GreenRise Intentional Residential Community at 4750, Joseph Taylor. I am delighted to announce that, with your help, this project won the Ford Community Green Grant today at the Chicago Green Festival, A Project of Green America and Global Exchange. There are similar Festivals happening in Los Angeles (Oct 19-20), San Francisco (Nov 9-10), Washington, DC (Sept 21-22), and New York (April 19-21). The prize was for $5,000. If my attachment is successfully transmitted, you can see a photo from the awards ceremony. Joseph is the tall one in the middle surrounded by supporters. On a related note, we also received notice last week that the GreenRise Building "solar project" has been awarded a $359,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to install renewable energy panels on our rooftop. The building at 4750 Sheridan is becoming a VERY high profile embodiment of "green culture" to complement our neighborhood sustainability work across the 77 community areas of Chicago. Terry Bergdall

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Re: [Oe List ...] GreenRise successes at 4750
by Alan 20 May '13

20 May '13

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Re: [Oe List ...] song for janice
by Nancy Lanphear 19 May '13

19 May '13

The name of the song is Song of the Soul by Cris Williamson. Someone else on the Order listserve may be able to send it on an MP4 format? Any one? Nancy On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 11:19 PM, Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com>wrote: > Thanks, Nancy. It is access to YouTube in China that is the > contradiction. So, if any in your neighborhood has the ability to transfer > YouTube to an MP4 format, that can be attached to email. > > Otherwise, just give me the title of the song (other than the Love > Divine of the first stanza) and I can see what I can google! > > Thanks for the other sites. Unfortunately, they are also YouTube! > > j'aime la vie > > *Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In > all, **Celebrate!* > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy(a)songaia.com> > To: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com> > Sent: Sun, May 19, 2013 12:12 pm > Subject: Re: song for janice > > Jaime, > > Sorry you could not access the last youtube. Here are two, one from > before and another. Hope it works. Please let me know. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-7yjMLNops > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyWFFhmx6k > > Thanks for asking, > > Nancy > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com>wrote: > >> Nancy, I cannot access YouTube from China. Not familiar with the song >> though first stanza seems to be the standard Methodist Hymnal variety. >> Anyway you can send me an alternative vid? >> >> Thanks. >> >> j'aime la vie >> >> *Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In >> all, **Celebrate!* >> > >

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5/16/13, Spong: Birth of Jesus, Part XIV. The Old Testament Antecedents in Luke's Story of Jesus' Birth
by Ellie Stock 16 May '13

16 May '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Birth of Jesus, Part XIV The Old Testament Antecedents in Luke's Story of Jesus' Birth In order to understand the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke, we need to embrace the fact that there is no way these stories were intended to be regarded as remembered history or as narratives that were literally true. That must be stated clearly. This means that there never was a star in the east or wise men who followed it. There never was a heavenly host of angels who sang to hillside shepherds. There never was a miraculous birth. These stories are memorable, engaging and fanciful, but neither Matthew nor Luke believed themselves to be recording something that actually happened at the time of Jesus’ birth. They knew that they were creating narratives in which they used symbols to interpret the adult experience the community’s leaders had had with one named Jesus of Nazareth. The proof of this is realized when we discover how much stories from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than eye witness accounts were used to provide the content of their birth narratives. Matthew’s story of the wise men, for example, was originally the creative work of an imaginative preacher, who combined Isaiah 60 with the story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (1 Kings 10) with some other illusions from the story of Balaam and Balak (Numbers 22-24). When we turn to Luke’s story, we discover that time after time he drew on accounts in Genesis with other toe-dips into such sources as the books of Daniel, Exodus and Malachi. It is an exciting adventure to unravel this biblical mystery story. Luke’s narrative begins with the birth of John the Baptist and one knowledgeable of the Hebrew Scriptures will immediately see here a familiar Jewish story. First, the parents of John the Baptist are introduced. Their names are Zechariah, a priest of the order of Abijah, and Elizabeth, a “daughter of Aaron,” who was both the brother of Moses and the first high priest of the Jewish nation. Both Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as righteous people, who “followed the laws of God in a blameless way.” They were now elderly, childless and thus without an heir. This, in a typically patriarchal way, was blamed on the woman, who is called “barren.” No one knew anything in those days about low sperm counts. Readers familiar with the book of Genesis will recognize this story as a retelling of the Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah prior to the conception of Isaac. Then the story of John the Baptist unfolds. Zechariah’s division of the priesthood was on duty to perform the sacred functions in the Temple. By lot, the opportunity to burn the incense in the Holy of Holies fell to him. This was considered a moment of intense meaning and high honor. A multitude of people waited outside for this ritual to be completed. People are always drawn to moments when mystery fills the air. Inside, however, Zechariah was delayed by what we are later to learn was a revelatory vision. An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Typically, Zechariah fell away in fear. The angel spoke telling him not to be afraid that his prayers for a child had been heard and that Elizabeth would bear a son. This son, the angel says, will accomplish great things working “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” Zechariah is incredulous. “How shall I know that this is so? My wife and I are well advanced in years.” In Genesis, Sarah was said to have been 90 years old and “past the time of women.” Identifying himself as Gabriel, the angel gives Zechariah a sign. “You will be unable to speak until the child is born. That too elicited Jewish scriptural memories. In the eighth chapter of Daniel, Daniel also had a vision of the Angel Gabriel in the Temple and following this vision he was commanded not to speak. These stories are been replicated. This episode took up so much time that the crowd of worshipers began to wonder what was happening. What went wrong? When Zechariah finally appeared and was unable to speak, their wonder was greatly enhanced. They speculated that he must have had a vision, but its content was not disclosed to them. Zechariah then completed his priestly duties and returned to his home. There, we are told, Elizabeth conceived and hid herself for five months, while she rejoiced that the Lord has “taken away my reproach among men.” Assuming that this story is not history, we ask why was it that Luke decided to name the parents of John the Baptist Zechariah and Elizabeth. Names are always clues in interpretive tales. There are a number of Zechariahs in the Hebrew Scriptures, but the most important one is the prophet, whose work is recorded in the “Book of the Twelve,” also called the minor prophets. Zechariah is the next to last book in the Old Testament followed only by the book of Malachi. Malachi is not the name of the author of this book, but is rather a Hebrew word that means “my messenger.” “Malachi” is thus a nameless voice whose task is to be the messenger, who “prepares the way for the coming of the Lord.” The book of Malachi relates this messenger to Elijah and, as we noted earlier, the angel says to Zechariah that the promised child will come “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” If John the Baptist is thus to be identified with Malachi, the nameless messenger who prepares the way for the Lord, then why not signal that fact by giving John’s father the name Zechariah, the name of the immediate predecessor of Malachi? Luke sends a message with this name. It was not accidental. What then about his mother Elizabeth? That is a little more difficult, but not impossible to demonstrate. There is a clue in Luke’s text where Elizabeth is said to be “a daughter of Aaron.” There is only one other Elizabeth in the entire Old Testament, where the name is written not Elizabeth but Elisheba. That single Elisheba is the wife of Aaron, which also makes her a sister in-law to both Moses and his sister Miriam. Miriam plays a major role in the story of the Exodus and a song of triumph is attributed to her after the successful crossing of the Red Sea. Is Luke going to pattern the family of Jesus after the analogy of the family of Moses? I believe he does and this conviction opens up Luke’s interpretive genius. Be aware first that in Hebrew, Miriam, when translated, would be “Mary.” Next note that only in Luke in the entire New Testament is there any sense that Jesus and John the Baptist are kin. In the 14th century, John Wycliffe suggested they were cousins. The sole hint of relatedness is found in the story that Luke tells of the Annunciation by Gabriel to Mary when she learns that she is to be the mother of the Holy Child. In that annunciation, Gabriel uses these words: “your kinswoman, Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.” If Luke’s analogy for Elizabeth was Aaron’s wife, Elisheba, and if Aaron’s sister Miriam was to be Mary, then Elizabeth and Mary were going to be the mothers of these two promised children; one, the first born destined to be the forerunner, and the other, the second born, the messiah. They would then have clearly been first cousins. Luke then has Mary, pregnant with Jesus, go into the hill country of Judah to visit her “kinswoman,” Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. Here one other interpretive experience occurs. There is a fetal salute. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps to salute the baby in Mary’s womb, which means that the issue of priority is settled before the birth of either. What in the world does that mean? When the gospel of Luke was written there was obviously tension between the Jesus movement and the John the Baptist movement. That tension is reflected in the book of Acts. Jesus originally was a follower of John. John had baptized Jesus according to the first three gospels. It was only when “the Baptist” was imprisoned that Jesus broke forth as a leader in his own right. Some of Jesus’ disciples had come to him after having been disciples of John. So the disciples of Jesus felt a need to establish the priority of Jesus. Luke accomplishes that by suggesting that there had been a fetal salute that established Jesus’ superiority. From where do you suppose Luke got the idea for that story? Again we turn to the Hebrew Scriptures. There is only one other story in the entire Bible in which a baby leaps in its mother’s womb in a way that meaning is attributed to that action. It too is found in the book of Genesis. In chapter 25 Rebekah, the wife of Isaac was pregnant. When the baby leaped in her womb, she went to an oracle to help her understand what this leaping meant. There she was informed that she was having twins and that the meaning of the fetal leap was to establish the fact that the first born of the twins, who would be named Esau, would actually serve the second born of the two, who would be named Jacob. Luke takes this Genesis story and transforms it. Jesus and John the Baptist are not twins but they are kin, he suggests. John was the elder by six months, Luke tells us. In this case the elder of the two, John, was to be the servant of the second born, Jesus, like the first born Esau was destined to be the servant of the second born Jacob. John, who was to prepare the way for Jesus will later be made to say about Jesus: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Luke grounded the John the Baptist story in the Hebrew Scriptures. The vision in the Temple and the inability to speak came from Daniel. The post-menopausal pregnancy comes from Abraham and Sarah. The superiority of Jesus to John, as well as their kinship, comes from the story of Jacob and Esau. Luke is mining the Hebrew Scriptures to portray Jesus’ birth. One cannot understand the birth narratives unless one sees their connections with the Hebrew Scriptures. We will continue this study of Luke’s birth narratives when this series resumes. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Kevin Orr from Sydney, Australia, writes: Question: I have been reading your books and articles for many years and I find your arguments persuasive, though I do not agree with everything you say. It may be only a minor aberration but what on earth do you mean by “living wastefully”? Answer: Dear Kevin, You have misquoted me; I have never said “living wastefully.” My mantra as to the way to demonstrate the gospel of Jesus is to “live fully, love wastefully and to be all that one can be.” This threefold appeal comes out of what I call my God experience. I seek to escape the theistic definition of God as an external being, supernatural in power, who invades our world periodically in miraculous ways. That definition of God simply no longer translates to a post- Galilean, post-Newtonian and a post-Darwinian world. Indeed, I think human beings should give up their almost idolatrous attempt to define God at all. We can experience God, but we cannot define God. So most religious God talk is nonsensical. We can, however, define our experience of God, recognizing that what we call “a God experience” may well turn out to be a subjective delusion, but I do not think it is, at least not in most cases. So when I try to make sense of what I believe is my experience of the transcendent, I use three concepts. I experience God as “the Source of life” empowering me to “live fully.” I experience God as “the Source of love” freeing me to “love wastefully,” by which I mean to love without stopping to count the cost; without pausing to determine whether the recipient of that love is an appropriate recipient. I experience God as “the Ground of all Being,” who gives me the courage to be all that I can be. If that is what God means to me then I worship this God by “living fully, loving wastefully and being all that I am capable of being.” My mission as a Christian is not “to convert the heathen” as we once asserted, it is rather to assist in the task of helping all people “to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that they are capable of being.” This is a Christianity grounded in a radical understanding of humanity. The reason I call it Christian and the reason I claim my identity as a Christian is that when I look at Jesus, I see in him a life fully lived, a love wastefully given and the courage to be himself in all circumstances, even when people are seeking to make him their king on Palm Sunday or when they were seeking to put him to death on Good Friday. So Jesus is the human life through whom the meaning and the presence of God is mediated to me. I can then join with St. Paul in the assertion that God was in Christ. I invite you to open yourself to this insight and to these possibilities. If you do, I do not believe that you will then ask “what do you mean by living fully or by loving wastefully?” ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Bishop Spong's New Book: The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic is now available to Pre-Order Recapture the Original Message of The Fourth Gospel! Pre-Order The Fourth Gospel Today! John Shelby Spong, bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a literary, interpretive retelling of the events in Jesus' life through the medium of fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the "Beloved Disciple." The Fourth Gospel was designed first to place Jesus into the context of the Jewish scriptures, then to place him into the worship patterns of the synagogue and finally to allow him to be viewed through the lens of a popular form of first-century Jewish mysticism.In The Fourth Gospel, John Shelby Spong reveals the subversive, mystical teachings of the writer of the Gospel of John and how his teachings can point us forward in the 21st century.The result of this intriguing study is not only to recapture the original message of this gospel, but also to provide us today with a radical new dimension to the claim that in the humanity of Jesus the reality of God has been met and engaged. “We now approach our scriptures with a literalism that is unparalleled in the history of religion. This new and imaginative book by John Shelby Spong will liberate many people from this unnecessary complication of the religious life.” — Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam “No one has done more to articulate a vibrant, post-mythic vision of Christianity than John Shelby Spong. Bishop Spong’s masterful interpretation is destined to become a classic.” — Michael Dowd, Author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World “Spong is always readable and informative, but this book reads like a cross between a detective story and an adventure saga that is founded on excellent scholarship. I could not put it down.” — Fred C. Plumer, President of ProgressiveChristianity.Org 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

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Vote For Rooftop Garden!
by Terry Bergdall 15 May '13

15 May '13

Joseph Taylor is a member of the GreenRise Residential Community at 4750 and he asked me to forward his message to my friends. He wrote; "As part of the Green Festival at Navy Pier this weekend in Chicago my Grant proposal is in the running along with five other finalists for the Ford Community Green Grant. Online voting for the winner has begun and you can vote once per day. Vote and spread the word to help receive funding for our Community Garden!" There are no geographical boundaries for this online voting, so please consider supporting Joesph and the community roof top garden at 4750 by voting for it via the following link: http://greenfestivals.org/chi/fcgg-chi Thanks, Terry

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HELP NEEDED!!!.........................Elinor Jane Stock
by Elinor Stock 14 May '13

14 May '13

- This mail is in HTML. Some elements may be ommited in plain text. - I really hope you get this fast. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. we had to be in Manila, Philippines for a programmed. The program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. we misplaced our wallet and cell phone on our way back to the hotel we lodge in after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contained all the valuables we had. Now, our passport is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment. I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but i have only very few people to run to now. i will be indeed very grateful if i can get a loan of $2,250 from you. this will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting me with. I promise to refund it in full as soon as I return. let me know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let me know soonest. Thanks so much.. Best Regards, Elinor

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Pope Francis
by Jaime R Vergara 10 May '13

10 May '13

Subject: A Roman Catholic Recognition Here is the latest from our newly ordained Pope Francis. If you are Catholic, particularly a Filipino Catholic who takes controversial issues to the side of levity, you'll appreciate this. Pope Francis recently finished his sermon. He ended it with the Latin phrase, "Tuti Homini" - Blessed be Mankind. A Woman's Rights Group approached the Pope the next day. They noticed that the Pope blessed all Mankind, but not Womankind. So the next day, after his sermon, the Pope concluded by saying, "Tuti Homini, et Tuti Femini" - Blessed be Mankind and Womankind. The day after, a Gay Rights Group approached the Pope. They said that they noticed that he blessed Mankind and Womankind and asked if he could also bless gay people. The Pope said, "Sure." The next day the Pope concluded his sermon with, "Tuti Homini, et Tuti Femini, et Tuti Fruiti." ***** With apologies to those who might receive this as beyond the pale of hilarity. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

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5/09/13, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part XIII. Introducing the Lucan Story
by Ellie Stock 09 May '13

09 May '13

Homepage My Profile Essay Archive Message Boards Calendar The Birth of Jesus, Part XIII Introducing the Lucan Story Somewhere six to ten years after the Gospel of Matthew was written, another gospel, the one we call Luke, makes its appearance. Both Matthew and Luke had Mark as a common source although Matthew used it more extensively than Luke. Some scholars also believe that Matthew and Luke had a second common source, a collection of the sayings of Jesus that they call “Q.” This source, however, has never been discovered in any independent way, so that its only existence appears to be in the common usage Matthew and Luke made of it. There are a few scholars who do not accept the existence of “Q” as a separate source. They account for the non-Marcan similarities in Matthew and Luke by suggesting that these similarities exist because Luke not only had access to Mark, but to Matthew as well, which suggests that what people have called “Q” is nothing more than Matthew’s redaction of Mark. I will not solve this debate, but just want to identify the issues and state that the conviction that there once existed a now lost document called “Q” is the overwhelming consensus of most American biblical scholars. For our purposes, we only need to note that there is substantial agreement in content beyond having Mark in common between Matthew and Luke. This also means that where Matthew and Luke diverge sharply, we need to enquire as to why. At least one of the sources of the primary differences between Matthew and Luke can be found in understanding the audiences for which each gospel was created. Matthew’s audience constituted a much more traditional Jewish community that saw Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish hopes and dreams. Luke’s audience was more a community of dispersed Jews, who had adapted significantly to the predominantly Gentile world in which they found themselves living and who saw Jesus in much more universal terms as the one who transcended all human barriers and brought human life into a deeper sense of “Oneness.” When we survey the books of the New Testament we discover that Matthew and Luke alone provide us with stories about the birth of Jesus. Then we discover that these two birth narratives differ significantly from each other reaching the level of overt contradictions. Matthew introduces the birth narrative with a genealogy of Jesus that roots him deeply in Jewish life and history. Luke introduces his narrative of Jesus’ birth with a story set in a Jewish context, but then moves quickly forward to its more universal meaning. For example, Luke also has a genealogy, but he uses it not as a preamble to the birth of Jesus, but as a way to open Jesus’ adult ministry. Unlike Matthew’s genealogy that begins with Abraham, the father of the Jews, Luke’s genealogy goes back to Adam, the father of the entire human race. Luke’s genealogy is a number of generations longer than Matthew’s. He also avoids the royal line of kings of Judah, going not from David to Solomon to Rehoboam as Matthew does, but from David to Nathan to Mattatha. The two genealogies also differ as to who was Joseph’s father. Matthew says it was Jacob; Luke says it was Heli. Those who try to force the Bible into literal harmony cannot get past these dual genealogies. Luke also gives us a story of the birth of John the Baptist that is found nowhere else in the New Testament. The purpose of this particular nativity narrative is to indicate the subservience of John the Baptist to Jesus, which Luke does at every point. John’s birth was spectacular in that he was born to postmenopausal parents, a repeat of the Abraham and Sarah story. Jesus’ birth, however, was even more spectacular in that he was the son of a virgin with the Holy Spirit acting as his father. When John the Baptist was born, the neighbors all gathered to celebrate his birth, but that celebration pales beside the fact that when Jesus was born, angels broke through the darkness of the night sky to celebrate and to announce the birth of Jesus. Indeed, Luke goes so far as to say that while John and Jesus were both in the wombs of their respective mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, the fetus of John actually leapt to salute the fetus of Jesus, to demonstrate that, even prior to the birth of either, John’s secondary role to Jesus’ primacy had been established. This reveals the high probability that in the community for which Luke wrote, there was considerable tension between the movement that grew up around John the Baptist and the movement that grew up around Jesus. Luke was weighing in on that debate in order to claim the priority for Jesus. As we noted earlier in this series, in Matthew Joseph tends to be the focus of the story. In Matthew the annunciation is made to Joseph in a dream by an unnamed angel, while in Luke the annunciation is made to Mary by a specific angel named Gabriel and not in a dream, but in real time. In Matthew the initiative is consistently in the character of Joseph, while in Luke Mary is the focus. Luke’s story includes a number of songs that are sung by the principals in the drama, thus turning what might have originally been a nativity play into a kind of “operetta.” Zechariah, at the birth of his son John, is made to sing the words that have come to be called the “Benedictus.” Mary sings the words that we now call the “Magnificat” on her visit to Elizabeth, her kinswoman, who lives, we are told, in the hill country of Judea. The angels sing the words we now call the “Gloria in Excelsis” to the hillside shepherds. Finally, an old priest named Simeon sings the words that we know as the “Nunc Dimittis” when he sees the baby Jesus for the first time and recognizes him as the fulfillment of the promise for which his entire life had yearned. While Matthew has Jesus fleeing from the wrath of Herod into the land of Egypt, Luke has him being circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, being presented in the Temple forty days later and then leisurely making his way with his family back to his Nazareth home in Galilee. While Luke certainly asserts a virgin status for the mother of Jesus, he never tries to ground that reality in the scriptures of the Jewish people and once the story of Jesus’ birth is told, Luke constantly refers to Joseph as the father of Jesus. Luke’s birth story is by every measure the more popular and the best known of the two. It is Luke’s story line, not Matthew’s, which is followed in our traditional Christmas pageants. These pageants normally begin with the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to a virgin in Nazareth causing her to go to visit Elizabeth, her “kinswoman,” in Judea. These pageants then proceed with the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem to be enrolled. On this journey, Mary is described as being “great with child.” When they arrive they discover there is no room at the inn, so she probably had the baby in the open country and placed him in a conveniently located feeding trough. No stable is ever mentioned in Luke’s text, but human imagination has created that stable and populated it with cows and sheep. No animals are found in Luke’s narrative, however, not even one who says: “Do you see what I see?” There is no star and there are no wise men in Luke. Luke apparently did not care for “magi.” In the book of Acts, which is authored by the same person who wrote the gospel that we call Luke, he reveals that he has little use for either kings or magi. So Matthew’s three kings or magi are replaced in Luke by humble shepherds. Matthew’s star is replaced by a heavenly host of angels. The symbols Luke employs are not gold for a king, incense for a deity or myrrh to mark Jesus’ path toward death, but rather “swaddling cloths” and a “manger.” Luke appears to have taken both of these symbols from the Hebrew Scriptures. In the apocryphal book known as the Wisdom of Solomon, Israel’s most opulent king was made to say: “When I was born, I was carefully swaddled for that is the only way a king can come to his people.” The manger or feeding trough seems to have been lifted from the first chapter of Isaiah, where the people of Israel are criticized for not knowing that they eat from God’s feeding trough. They do not recognize that God is the source of everything that sustains them. Luke will thus introduce the story of Jesus by saying that from the moment of his birth this messianic figure will recognize his relationship with and his dependence on the God of Israel. He will be placed in the feeding trough and will relate to God as a symbol of faithfulness, unlike the historic witness of the Jewish nation. Through this Jesus, not only the Jews, but the people of the entire world, will learn of God’s infinite love for all that God has made. There is one other echo from the Hebrew Scriptures found in Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth and that is found in the figure of Samuel. In the story of Samuel, his mother Hannah is unable to conceive a child and she is found weeping in the sanctuary of God by the high priest, a man named Eli. Eli tells her that her prayers have been answered and that she will bear a son. Samuel’s birth is thus also surrounded by supernatural events. Hannah then in gratitude pledges her son Samuel to the service of God. When Samuel is born, Hannah sings a song that is very similar to the Magnificat sung by Mary; indeed most scholars think the Magnificat is based on Hannah’s song. When Samuel is of age, Hannah takes him to the worship center of his nation and dedicates him to the service of God under the tutelage of Eli, the high priest. That story finds an echo in Luke when Mary and Joseph take the twelve-year old Jesus to the Temple for Passover, probably in a kind of Bar Mitzvah ceremony. Finally, to return to the genealogy of Luke in which Jesus’ relationship to God is publicly announced, we now note once again that Luke says the father of Joseph was one named Heli. “Heli” is the Greek spelling of the Hebrew “Eli,” the name of the elderly high priest under whom Samuel served. Perhaps Luke was signaling in this name that he was drawing on the story of Samuel to tell his story of Jesus. Luke did that with other names, as we shall note when this series continues. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Frederick Somerville, from Sweden writes: Question: I wish to comment on the situation in Europe (being a resident of Sweden) described in your recent column. In Russia there is a re-emergence of religious power walking hand in hand with the political power. Heresy laws are being introduced. This is a state where religion was considered "for the masses" not too long ago. Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Hungary (have they forgotten WWII?) In Poland the Catholic Church is gaining political power. So you could say that with increasing uncertainty the religions are regaining their position as "reducers of angst" (angest in Swedish). This is not a positive thing to those of us who see the gospels as literary documents. I am personally lending our local pastors copies of your books and this is triggering some healthy debate. My goal is to have them carry the theological debate to the pew sitters in our area. With an average of perhaps ten persons in church on a Sunday, they have to do something. I have noticed that I can have a very deep theological discussion with a pastor and they openly admit that they too have problems in believing in the literal scriptures. However, the moment they stand before the congregation, they are back in Sunday School theology mode. It is as if they are programmed to state the standard point of view. For me this creates a huge credibility gap. I fully believe that if they dared to take their own doubts to the altar and be honest about them, pew sitters would feel much more at home. Answer: Dear Frederick, I am aware of some of the things about which you write but I am not convinced that they represent new trends so much as an attempt to reclaim the past, which some people almost inevitably do, especially in times of rapid change or a shift in consciousness. I see no evidence that Russia is about to become an Orthodox religion state. I do see Eastern Orthodoxy evolving, if ever so slowly, into a new and relevant self-understanding. My experience in Hungary is that major shame embraces the anti-Semitism of the past. I see no evidence that the Catholic Church is regaining political power in Poland. The Catholic Church was the ally of Lech Walesa, but the people strongly resisted any attempt on the part of that Church to regain political dominance. Europe is moving in an increasingly secular direction. A Christianity that can engage secularism rather than trying to convert secularism to yesterday’s religious forms is the direction I think Europe will go. I am glad you are engaged with the pastors in your community on a new way to look at Christianity. I am not surprised that when they return to their small and, I presume elderly, congregations, they revert to the patterns of the past. Until questioning people darken the Church’s doors, there are few churchgoers who are capable of hearing a new message. For Christianity to be revived in Europe, I think we must take it out of the churches; wrest it from domination by the various hierarchies and present it in a new form to those who have departed from the churches. Of all the nations I’ve visited, I think Sweden has the best chance to do this because of great leaders in the past and the present. I think of such heroic bishops in the past as K. G. Hammar, Claes-Bertal Ytterburg, and modern leaders like Hans Ulvrebrand and Marianne Blom. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Bishop Spong's new book, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, is available for Pre-Order NOW! John Shelby Spong, bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a literary, interpretive retelling of the events in Jesus' life through the medium of fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the "Beloved Disciple." The Fourth Gospel was designed first to place Jesus into the context of the Jewish scriptures, then to place him into the worship patterns of the synagogue and finally to allow him to be viewed through the lens of a popular form of first-century Jewish mysticism. The result of this intriguing study is not only to recapture the original message of this gospel, but also to provide us today with a radical new dimension to the claim that in the humanity of Jesus the reality of God has been met and engaged. Pre-Order Here! 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

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Friend of friend needs a place in NYC
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 08 May '13

08 May '13

This is from a friend on the D.Min., University of Creation Spirituality, list. If anyone has a helpful suggestion. e-mail me at _laurelcg(a)aol.com_ (mailto:laurelcg@aol.com) and I'll pass it on. Thanks. Jann McGuire Greetings All, I have local musician friends whose son is very gifted musically and was accepted at the New School in Greenwich Village. We were chatting yesterday about their struggle to find a place in NYC area for him to live starting August. Do any of you have suggestions, networks? I sure would appreciate it - and in the meantime express my gratitude for this group and send you all good, Spring wishes, Peggy Short (D.Min., 2006)

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