April 2015 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Re: [Oe List ...] first twelve human development projects
by via OE 29 Apr '15

29 Apr '15

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May issue of Global Buzz reminder
by ICA International via OE 27 Apr '15

27 Apr '15

Auto email to all ICA Global Buzz responders. (English - Français Español) Hello everyone. Here is the monthly Global Buzz reminder. We hope that you will share the events and happenings of the past few weeks at your ICA, with all ICA members. This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published May 5th. 2015 (Please send your entries at least a day ahead) Send details of news items, training programmes, your peer to peer connections with other ICAs, any concerns you may have and of any events that are coming up at your location. Your report can be long or short, but remember that all other ICAs would really like to know about the things that matter where you are, and what you are doing as an ICA. To Send your information: please use the link below, Go directly to: www.icai-members.org/globalbuzz or if you wish, send by regular e-mail to: inform(a)icai-members.org The Global Buzz is now published monthly. All submissions received prior to each publication date will be included in that issue. Submissions arriving later will be included in the next issue. To read Global Buzz anytime including all back issues......... Go directly to www.icai-members.org/buzz/buzzpast OR use the Members Section of the ICAI website. www.icai-members.org Peter, for ICAI Communications Bonjour tout le monde. Voici le rappel de Bourdonnement Global mensuel. Nous espérons que vous partageriez les événements des quelques semaines dernières passées chez votre ICA, avec tous les membres d'ICA. Veuillez envoyer des détails d'articles de nouvelles, de programmes d'entraînement , des connexions entre camarades avec d'autres ICA , n'importe quelles inquiétudes vous pourriez avoir et de n'importe quels événements qui auront lieu chez vous . Votre rapport peut être long ou court, mais il faut se souvenir que tout autre ICA aimerait savoir vraiment des choses d'importance où vous êtes , et ce que vous faites comme un ICA. Pour Envoyer vos informations : s'il vous plaît utilisez le lien ci-dessous, Allez directement à : www.icai-members.org/globalbuzz Ou si vous souhaitez, envoyez par l'e-mail régulier à : inform(a)icai-members.org Le Bourdonnement Global est maintenant bimensuel - a la mi-mois et a la fin de mois. Toutes les soumissions reçues avant chaque date d'édition apparaitront. Les soumissions qui arrivent plus tard seront incluses dans la prochaine apparition. Pour lire le Bourdonnement Global n'importe quand y compris tous les apparitions postérieures . ........ Allez directement à www.icai-members.org/buzz/buzzpast OU utilisez la Section de Membres du site Web d'ICAI. www.icai-members.org Peter, pour les Communications d'ICAI Hola a todos. Aquí le mando el recordatorio para el Global Buzz. Esperamos que ustedes envíen los sucesos de las pasadas semanas en su ICA, para compartir con los miembros de ICAI. Por favor envíen detalles sobre nuevos temas, programas de entrenamiento, las conexiones con sus pares, cualquier preocupación que puedan tener, y sobre los muchos eventos que están por suceder en sus localidades. Sus reportes pueden ser largos o cortos, pero recuerden que a todos los otros ICAs les gustaría conocer las cosas importantes que suceden donde ustedes están, y lo que ustedes están haciendo como un ICA. Para enviar su información utilicen el siguiente link, Vayan directamente a: www.icai-members.org/globalbuzz o si prefieren enviarlo por e-mail, hacerlo a: inform(a)icai-members.org El Global Buzz ahora está siendo publicado dos veces al mes a la mitad y al fin de cada mes. Todos los envíos hechos antes de la fecha de publicación serán incluidos en esa edición. Los envíos que lleguen después serán incluidos en la siguiente edición. Para leer Global Buzz en cualquier momento, incluso ediciones pasadas vayan directamente a www.icai-members.org/buzz/buzzpast O utilicen la Sección para Miembros de ICAI en el sitio web www.icai-members.org Peter, por ICAI Comunicaciones

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Cowspiracy
by via OE 27 Apr '15

27 Apr '15

You can watch it online at www.cowspiracy.com, or download it for $1. Jann

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Earthquake Kathmandu
by Beret Griffith via OE 27 Apr '15

27 Apr '15

What has anyone heard from our colleagues in Kathmandu since the devastating earthquake last night? A friend of mine just heard from one family, longtime friends, and they have survived. Beret Griffith

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Saw Cowspiracy last night
by George Holcombe via OE 27 Apr '15

27 Apr '15

I really think you need to see the documentary. As we know Art Forms are more than their pieces. It’s a bit like a hear-say conversation about Guenica without ever having seen it, or a discussion of RS-I among those who’ve never taken it. It has information that climate deniers and conservationists, alike, don’t talk about. Not just cow poop, but what’s happening to the fish in the ocean, the acidity of our oceans, destruction of rain forests, the pollution of our seas and rivers, the whole nine yards of what’s happening on the planet. You may also be interested in Dr. Jeffery Sach’s (the director of Earth Institute at Columbia University) remarks on Fareed Zecharia’s CNN program, April 19, 2015, where he points out, using the UN report, that 2015 is our last chance to act on Climate Change. I would like to see us have a conversation about this and what we can do as a group. BTW, Jaime would like to see the film. If anyone has a way to stream the film to him let him know. I don’t at the moment. Our library is getting the film in in a couple of weeks, and I’m looking around to see how streaming would work. George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda1(a)me.com "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley > On Apr 27, 2015, at 3:09 AM, Tracy Longacre via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > I'm pretty sure those stats only apply to Feedlot beef. > > — > Terran E. Longacre > Sent from one of my iThingies > > > On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 11:23 PM, Randy Williams via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote: > > Agriculture in general, which is what most of our water is used for, but especially cattle, the greatest producers of methane, which is considerably more harmful than CO2. Interesting stat--it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef, and 12,000 gals of water to grow 16 lbs of grain. > Randy > > Sent from my iPad > > > On Apr 26, 2015, at 6:15 PM, Karenbueno via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote: > >> Give us a little clue, George. What industry are they talking about? >> >> Karen Bueno >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: George Holcombe via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>> >> To: ICA/OE List Serves <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>> >> Sent: Sat, Apr 25, 2015 9:16 am >> Subject: [Dialogue] Saw Cowspiracy last night >> >> Wanda and I got to see Cowspiracy last night at our local library. I would highly recommend the film, especially if you are interested in conservation, global warming, climate change and saving the planet. I wonder if others among us have seen it? You can look at it at Cowspiracy.com <http://cowspiracy.com/>. >> >> George Holcombe >> 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. >> Austin, TX 78728 >> Mobile 512/252-2756 >> geowanda1(a)me.com <mailto:geowanda1@me.com> >> >> "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dialogue mailing >> list >> Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> >> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dialogue mailing list >> Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> >> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net> > > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Some Twitter updates for Nepal Details
by steve har via OE 26 Apr '15

26 Apr '15

WeStandWith Nepal https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeStandwithNepal?src=hash NepalQuak Relief https://twitter.com/hashtag/nepalquakerelief?src=rela ComisAid https://twitter.com/hashtag/commisaid?src=hash Un OCHA East Asia Pacific https://twitter.com/OCHAAsiaPac NewsFromNepal https://twitter.com/NewsFromNepal NepalEarthquake https://twitter.com/hashtag/NepalEarthquake?src=hash USEmbassyNepal https://twitter.com/usembassynepal -- Steve Harrington

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Memorial Service for Betty Pesek
by Terry Bergdall via OE 26 Apr '15

26 Apr '15

Kay asked me this morning to help get the word out on this. Below if the information. It is anticipated that this will be held at the ICA GreenRise Building at 4750 N. Sheridan in Chicago but, as she says, details will follow. In the meantime, please mark your calendars and send her an RSVP if you plan to attend. Terry +++++++++ *Dear Friends and Colleagues,* *Please join us for the celebration of the completed life of Betty Pesek on Saturday July 11, 2015 in Chicago. In order to help us with our preparations, please RSVP by May 11, 2015. Details about exact time and place will follow.* *With warm regards,* *The Pesek and Nixon Families* *RSVP to kapnixon(a)gmail.com <kapnixon(a)gmail.com> and/or gnixon.52(a)gmail.com <gnixon.52(a)gmail.com>*

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Earthquake Kathmandu
by via OE 25 Apr '15

25 Apr '15

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Re: [Oe List ...] Women of the World mini-poster
by David Dunn via OE 24 Apr '15

24 Apr '15

> On Apr 22, 2015, at 4:31 PM, Del Morrill <delhmor(a)wamail.net> wrote: > > Does anyone have a copy of the Women of the World card that I could borrow to scan and then return. Hello all. Problem solved. Thanks to all who responded. David — "Mystery, possibility, and the power to choose" [read and share on David's blog—www.spiritjourneys.org] David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 720-314-5991 dmdunn1(a)gmail.com

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4/23/15, Spong: “Resurrection” A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part I
by Ellie Stock via OE 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR “Resurrection”A Reality or a Pious Dream? Part I On Easter Sunday, a couple of weeks ago now, I was in my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, New Jersey. I was not alone. Into that church, at one of its four Easter services, came about 300 % more people than we normally would have on a regular Sunday morning. I have no reason to think that the same thing was not experienced in other churches across the Christian world. Easter is the best attended day of worship in the entire Christian world. Have we ever wondered who these people are? Do we ever ask them what draws them, or what it is they are seeking? Have we ever wanted to know what they experience on that one great festival Sunday? Did their yearning to be in church on Easter Sunday express anything more than nostalgia? Were they really looking for life, hope and meaning? Do the churches of the Christian world use that Sunday to seek to answer the deeply human question posed best by the biblical character we call Job so many hundreds of years ago: “If a man (or a woman) dies, shall he (or she) live again?” How many of our clergy sought to address that human anxiety in their Easter sermons? Do we, as a profession, still believe that the Christian Church can speak to the anxiety of mortality? Have Easter sermons become “word games” in which we substitute pious clichés for conviction? Has the word “resurrection” come to be nothing more than a symbol for a developing consciousness; something that speaks to our social needs or the human desire to find some way of transcending our very finite limits? Do we still grapple anywhere with the original meaning of Easter? Do we even know what that meaning is? By now are we not all well aware that the way we, who live inside the Christian church, have traditionally spoken of the resurrection of Jesus, is no longer believable? Deceased bodies do not return to physical life on the third day after being buried! Can we imagine a brain, deprived of oxygen from Friday afternoon until the dawn of Sunday, being restarted? Can the process of physical decay ever really be reversed without time being made to run backward? Was the resurrection of Jesus ever a physical event? Was it ever the resuscitation of a deceased body? If it was not physical, can it still be real? Were the biblical stories of Jesus’ resurrection ever meant to be accounts of an objective event or were they always subjective visions? Apparitions? Hallucinations? Is the truth of Easter found in the supposition that maybe Jesus did not really die and actually “came to” in the grave only to escape it and to be seen literally by others? Is any of that possible? Is any of that believable? Is it some aspect of this hope, still deep in our finite natures, which draws us into Easter worship once a year? Are those hopes ever realized? The fact is that the Sunday after Easter is probably the most poorly attended Sunday of the church year. It is called “Low Sunday” for a good reason. In the more liturgically-oriented churches of Christianity, Easter is not just a single day, but an entire season. Following the lead of Luke’s gospel, the season of Easter is designed to be celebrated and observed for forty days. Show me the congregation that takes this practice seriously. There are six Sundays in the Easter season. That season, called “the great forty days,” is supposed to be terminated by the experience, again only described in Luke, called the ascension. Ascension is then followed ten days later in the liturgical calendar by the celebration of Pentecost. It was as if the church knew that one day was not enough to explore so deep and intricate a subject as life beyond death. The fact is, however, that the message of Easter is never stretched much beyond the day itself. In this column throughout the entire Easter season and even beyond it, I want to do better than that. I want to probe the biblical content that stands behind the packed houses of worship on Easter Sunday. I want to ask searching questions about that content. They are questions church people seem loath to face in a significant way. Is Easter real? Is it just a myth? Did something objective happen at Easter or have we allowed our imaginations and fantasies to run wild? Was Jesus literally raised from the dead in some tangible way? Or is resurrection just a figure of speech? Do we know the Bible’s Easter stories well enough to have an opinion? Paul, for example, did not seem to think that resurrection was a physical thing at all, but he never seemed to find the words that enabled him to say what it was. Paul was the first person in the Bible to write about Easter, but his witness does not seem to be conclusive. Do any of us really know what he says? Are any of us similarly aware that the first gospel to be written, Mark, never records a story of Jesus appearing after his crucifixion to anyone at any time? Are we aware that accounts of the raised Christ ever being seen do not enter the Christian tradition until the 9th decade? What does that mean? Are we aware that as the years went by between the event of the cross and the writing of the Easter stories, accounts of the resurrection grew more and more magical, more and more supernatural? If the resurrection is to be regarded by 21st century believers as a literal event that actually happened in time, in space and in history, why are the details surrounding the description of that event in the Bible so filled with contradictions? Are we sufficiently aware of the biblical stories of the resurrection to know that they disagree on such basic questions as: Who went to the tomb? What did they see? Who was the first to discern Jesus as raised from the dead? Where were the disciples when Easter dawned on their consciousness? Do we realize that even that location is disputed in the gospels? How could the same resurrected body that walked through locked doors in one gospel also in that same gospel be probed physically by the hands of Thomas? How could a body that could materialize and then vanish into thin air still eat a physical meal in the village of Emmaus as another gospel asserts? Can a body capable of appearing and disappearing also do such physical things as eating, drinking, talking, walking and interpreting scripture? Is the phrase “three days” a measure of time or is it a symbol? If it is a symbol, a symbol of what? Are we aware that no one saw the risen Jesus in Mark’s gospel; they only got a promise that they would see him in Galilee? Are we aware that Galilee was a seven to ten day journey from Jerusalem? What does “three days” mean in that scenario? Have we who claim to be Christians ever isolated the various narratives of the resurrection from one another and looked at them in the light of contemporary biblical scholarship? If not, why not? Are they not important? Is it possible that we are afraid that if we study them, we will no longer believe them? Pious clichés will never be a proper way to deal with profound questions. I think that people come to church on Easter hoping to hear something convincing and real. They do not find it and so depart from church only to give it one more shot the next Easter. I want to do better than that in this column. So, next week I will begin a study of what the sources in the New Testament actually say about Easter. I will begin with what Paul said and believed about the meaning of Easter. I suspect the results will surprise you. In subsequent columns, I will look at what Mark said and at what Mark believed about Easter, then in turn at what Matthew, Luke and John said and believed about Easter. Finally, I will try to put the clues together and recreate the way Easter must have dawned in human history. I hope it will be revelatory and I hope it will carry you far beyond what you learned about Easter in your childhood Sunday school training or in your annual Easter visit to church in your adulthood. Let me now prepare you for that study by asking you to embrace a clear distinction. An experience and the explanation of that experience are not the same. An experience is and can be timeless and eternal. An experience can open us to a transcendent dimension of reality that changes life. An explanation, which is required if that experience is to be shared, will, however, always wrap that experience inside time-bound and time-warped human words that can never be eternal. Words reflect the subjectivity of language, the level of knowledge available to the one explaining, the time that one lives in history and the meanings that one shares. When knowledge changes, language shifts to reflect the new knowledge or else the explanation becomes recognized as mythological in nature. It is our experience that the sun always emerges in the east and sets in the west. The Egyptians once explained that by suggesting that Ra, the Sun God, drove his chariot across the heavens each day to survey all the world. We explain it today as the earth spinning in its elliptical orbit as it circles the sun every 365 1/4 days. Those two explanations are vastly different; the experience being explained, however, is identical. The problem with most religious systems is that we have literalized our explanations. Every explanation is finally inadequate and finite so every explanation is destined to die, the victim of expanded knowledge. If religion is made up of literalized explanations, religion will die. The resurrection of Jesus was an experience. It obviously had power. It changed lives, it expanded the understanding of God and caused a new holy day to be born. That is considerable power. When that experience was explained, however, it entered time and space and those explanations became quite mortal. If we identify the experience with the explanations of that experience then the experience will die when the explanations die, as all explanations inevitably do. That is where we are today in relation to the story of Easter. Can we separate the experience of Easter from the dying explanations of antiquity? If we cannot, Christianity is doomed. If we can, Easter will mean something radically different from what we have believed. It will be a dangerous probe. I hope you are willing to join me in it. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Dr. Jorge Suria from San Juan, Puerto Rico, writes: Question: For many years, I have been in the process of trying to preserve my Christian heritage on the one hand and on the other conflicted by the many absurdities of Christian mythology. As a stubborn seeker, scientist and psychiatrist, it has been my joy to find my beliefs summarized in your life's work, which I am thoroughly reviewing and studying. You have given me new hope and it is my mission to use science to provide a grounded base for hope. I find in you a kindred soul which is helping me write the song I will leave behind for my loved ones still in the delusional denial of life's existential anxieties by holding onto myths that they truly don't believe. I wish you Pacce e Benne, peace and goodness, the ancient traditional Franciscan blessing and I look forward to further discourses with you and meeting you personally. Answer: Dear Dr. Suria, Thank you for your letter. I am glad that you have found my work helpful to your life and career. There is certainly a division between what you call your “Christian heritage” and “Christian mythology,” but I am not sure they can be or even should be separated. Myths are the way human beings understand their world. That is not the problem, literalizing the myths is. Because Santa Claus is a myth does not mean that the spirit of giving should not be embraced. Because there are some circumstances in human life that cannot be fixed does not mean that through science and research, they cannot be moved beyond the limits of yesterday. The cultural wisdom expressed in the story of Humpty Dumpty that all the kings horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again, does not mean that we should not expand life expectancy as we have done by doubling it over the last 200 years. Because the story of the virgin birth is so clearly a myth does not mean that we human beings have not found something in Jesus that human life by itself could never have produced. If you, as a psychiatrist cannot actually cure a psychotic person, but by psychotherapy and the use of certain drugs, you can enable that patient to function perhaps in a neurotic, but not psychotic pattern, is that not worth doing? Life is a mystery which we are called to engage. What we think of as obvious truth today may look like mythology to our descendants in the 23rd or 24th century. Truth may not be relative, but our perception of truth always is. The experience of God may be real and eternal, but our attempt to explain that experience in a Bible, the creeds, our doctrines, dogmas and liturgies is never eternal. That is a fine line to walk. Organized religion constantly falls into idolatry. By that I mean that we relate to things we have created, e.g. the Bible and human creeds, as if they are the truth to which they only point. Thank you for your insights, your courage and your faith. They inspire me. I hope they will inspire thousands. John Shelby Spong Announcements This month's eBulletin from ProgressiveChristianity.org was on Personal and World Transformation through Environmental Stewardship. Read it here!

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