November 2016 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

8/11/16, Spong: The Unlikely Honored Guest at the Democratic National Convention
by Ellie Stock via OE 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

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He was surrounded in that reserved and exclusive seating area by the power-elite of the Democratic Party: A former President, the sitting Vice-President and the “second lady,” the spouses and children of the nominees, as well as those especially invited guests, who were uniquely and politically related to the convention’s eventual nominee. This unlikely guest was in his own way quite unique. He was a Republican, one who had been elected to a state-wide office as a candidate of the opposition party. He served as the governor of Virginia from 1970 – 1974 and was the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869 in the last days of reconstruction. Later he sought his party’s nomination to the Senate of the United States, losing to another Republican, John Warner, who served with distinction from 1979 until he retired in 2008. The name of this mystery quest is Abner Linwood Holton. He is now, and has been since the day I first met him, an extraordinary man. People, unaware of the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia, find it strange that the man I regarded as the best governor of Virginia during the years I lived in that state would be a Republican. Let me tell you his story.</p> <p>Linwood Holton was born in 1923 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town deep in the heart of Appalachia. He was a Republican from the moment of his birth. He was also bright and ambitious. Being a Republican in Virginia in those days was to be part of a distinct minority, perhaps even an endangered one! The Democrats of Virginia were the only cohesive political force in the state. This majority party was run by Virginia’s senior United States Senator, Harry Flood Byrd, who after serving a term as governor from 1926 to 1930, effectively ran the state until he died in 1966. It was said of Harry Byrd that he and a few of his closest political advisors would sit on the porch at his home in Berryville, Virginia, and pick the candidates for every political vacancy in Virginia from governor on down. The electorate was deliberately kept small by poll taxes, which effectively discouraged both blacks and poor whites from voting. A Byrd loyalist was in every county seat in Virginia to run the party. Racism was deep and “States Rights” was a holy slogan designed to make racism seem socially acceptable. Virginia was a one party state. Frequently the Republicans would not even nominate candidates and, even when they did, no one paid much attention to them because whoever won the Democratic primary seldom even campaigned in the general election, since Republicans simply did not win in this state! Linwood Holton made it his life’s ambition to establish two-party politics in Virginia.</p> <p>He graduated from Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, and then entered the law school at Harvard University. Along the way he married a Roanoke girl, named Virginia Rogers, who went by the name of Jinks. She was the daughter of Frank Rogers, an upright, but ultra-conservative, successful and well-connected Roanoke citizen, who was the grandson of the first Episcopal Bishop in Southwestern Virginia. In his mind, the two greatest virtues were to be a conservative Episcopalian and a loyal Byrd Democrat. Jinks, the more rebellious of Rogers’ two daughters, chose to marry a Republican and a Presbyterian! Supported by this remarkable woman, Linwood began his life’s task of strengthening Virginia’s Republican Party. This party’s base, such as it was, had always been in the mountains of the western part of Virginia. As a force in opposition to Byrd Democrats, the Virginia Republican party tilted slightly leftward. There was no room to the right of the Byrd machine. The Virginia Republicans were known for their party’s efforts to improve education statewide and to develop better state mental health facilities. Linwood’s organizational efforts were so successful that in 1965 he was the Republican nominee for governor opposing the Southside, Virginia, Byrd Democrat, Mills Godwin, who had emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party. The sickness, retirement and subsequently the death of Senator Byrd meant that the torch of party leadership had to be passed to the next generation. It is interesting that Harry Byrd, Jr., always known as “Little Harry,” who was appointed to succeed his father in the Senate, did not succeed him in the leadership of the statewide Democratic Party. Holton was defeated in that first run for the governor’s office, but he garnered a respectable total of votes and succeeded in introducing himself to the state. The day after the defeat, he began planning for his second run in 1969. The governorship in Virginia, we need to note, is limited by the Constitution to a single term.</p> <p>National issues soon began to erode the Byrd majorities. Poll taxes were declared unconstitutional in 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the ballot to people of color. The feminist movement began to galvanize women into an effective political force. A national- thinking Virginia Democrat, named Henry Howell, began to build a liberal political base made up of labor unions, blacks, women and young people. His challenge to the Byrd machine resulted ultimately in his election as Lt. Governor in 1971, but he could go no farther. He remained anathema to Byrd Democrats. In the Democratic Primary of 1969, the Byrd candidate, William Battle, the son of former Governor John Battle, defeated Henry Howell in a bitter contest. The party could not heal this division, so in the General Election, Linwood Holton, supported by many of Howell’s still angry voters, rode to victory with a 65,000 vote majority.</p> <p>In his inaugural address, Holton called for an end to Virginia’s pattern of racial discrimination and its racist politics. No Virginia Governor had ever uttered such words before. Words, however, were not enough. People looked for actions. They would follow soon.</p> <p>In the most dramatic step imaginable, the new governor and his wife made the decision not to put their children in the church-related or independent private schools of Richmond, where all governors’ children had previously attended, but to enroll them in Richmond’s public schools which were at that time about 80% black. It was such a startling action for a Virginia politician that the New York Times covered it with a front page story and a picture of Virginia’s Governor Holton escorting one of his daughters into a school surrounded by a host of black faces smiling broadly. In a state where the official response of the ruling Democratic machine to “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” had been to call for “massive resistance to the law of the land,” a state in which some counties chose to close their public schools rather than to integrate them, here was the highest elected official in the state escorting his children into the majority black public schools of Richmond, Virginia. No action could have announced better that a new day was dawning in what had once been the capital of the Confederacy. One of those Holton children entering those public schools on that day was their oldest daughter, Anne.</p> <p>The white population of Virginia was shocked. They believed and stated that their new governor was sacrificing his children on the “altar of integration.” Many suggested that the “inferior education” that his children would receive in those heavily black schools would cripple them for life. It was a strange argument that gave the lie to the previous white claim that all of its racially segregated schools were “separate, <em>but equal</em>.” Anne, in her early teens, would be an exemplary student. She received a fine education and upon graduation from high school would be admitted to Princeton University, from which she graduated <em>magna cum laude</em>. She seemed not to have been penalized at all in her educational achievements. After Princeton she was accepted into the class of 1983 at the Harvard Law School, from which she now holds a doctor of Jurisprudence degree. From there she went into a legal career that in time would include being a domestic relations judge and Virginia’s Education Secretary.</p> <p>While at Harvard she met, fell in love with and married a fellow law student, who was born in Minnesota and educated at the University of Missouri. His name was Tim Kaine. She lured him back to Richmond, where his earlier life experiences, including his Jesuit high school education, his year as a volunteer missionary to Honduras and his mastery of the Spanish language, prepared him to begin his Richmond law practice as a civil rights attorney. Then responding to an expressed community need, he entered politics at the most local of levels, running for a seat on Richmond’s nine-member City Council. In a majority black city, Tim not only won that seat, but was also later elected by that majority-black city council to be Richmond’s Mayor. Two years later, in 2001 he moved to the state level, being elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. In 2005, he won the governor’s office. His wife, Anne Holton, became the first person to be at one time living in the governor’s mansion as the child of a Republican governor and then a second time as the state’s first lady and wife of a Democratic governor. In 2012, Tim Kaine won a seat in the United States Senate. In 2016, with two years remaining in his first term as senator, he was chosen by the presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be her vice-presidential running mate. Anne Holton was there with him, waving to the crowd on the final night. As Hillary Clinton raised Tim Kaine’s hand high, former president Bill Clinton was at her side and Anne Holton was at Tim Kaine’s side. The crowd roared with approval.</p> <p>In the VIP section of that vast Philadelphia arena sat the former Republican Governor Linwood Holton, now 92 years old, with his wife Jinks, both still vibrant and attractive, watching their daughter being introduced to the nation. There is sometimes a reward for integrity. Linwood and Jinks Holton, who would not allow their lives to be twisted by the prejudice of racism, challenged the distorting and debilitating social structures of his generation in Richmond, Virginia. Doing what is right sometimes carries with it intimations of transcendence and even immortality. To this day he remains one of my heroes.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Alberto Mejia Aguilera from Mexico writes via the internet:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am from Mexico and I would like to know your opinion about Liberation Theology. Do you think that this theology is still an inspiration for the struggle against the social injustice?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Alberto,</p> <p>Liberation theology was, I believe, was born in Latin America, so you should be especially proud of it. I associate the name of Leonardo Boff, primarily, with it, but there were others like the murdered Bishop Oscar Romero. It was born in an attempt to apply the principles of the gospel not just to individuals, but also to the structures of our society, which so often drive the masses into poverty. It identifies God with the poor. For those reasons it tended to be resisted in ecclesiastical circles, especially by the leaders of the Roman Catholic during the years of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, both of whom were so politically conservative that they saw it as another manifestation of Communism. I think they were both wrong in this judgment. Liberation theology, I believe, constituted a call to Christianity to see that its alliance with power, both in Europe and the new world, had corrupted the essential justice that Christianity requires.</p> <p>Christianity was born among the poor and the outcasts. It rose to dominate society and so became the religion of kings. Liberation Theology was a necessary correction.</p> <p>I wish you well.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="262" style="width: 350px;height: 262px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="350" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e67ac6a0-334…"></a></div> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan September 10th & 11th</span></span></h2> <strong>Schedule:</strong> Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:00 pm at the Reynolds Recital Hall, Northern Michigan University 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Marquette Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:00 pm at the Memorial Union Building , Michigan Technological University At each location, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and book signing.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_1c149769-41d3-4c3b-8300-eaccdde19ae7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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"Journey Reflection" > Sept. 2016 most viewed blog posts
by John C via OE 31 Dec '16

31 Dec '16

Colleagues, friends, family and others, Please view any of the 16 most viewed of the 60 posts during September 2016 @ Journey Reflection blog posts<http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2016/09/journey-reflection-blog-posts-septemb…> Namaste <http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2016/06/journey-reflection-blog-posts-june-20…> John & Lynda Cock ("Cook" online at Facebook ... long story) ________ You can view Daily Blog "Journey Reflection" at these links >> Google: www.reJourney.blogspot.com<http://www.rejourney.blogspot.com/> Books Page: http://www.amazon.com/JPC/LLC<http://www.amazon.com/John-P.-Cock/e/B001K8Y5KW> Web Page: www.transcribebooks.com<http://www.transcribebooks.com/> Ask us to receive free blog posts via MailChimp email daily ... along with 200+ colleagues ... like the one below ... View this email in your browser<http://rejourney.blogspot.com/> Journey Reflection September 30, 2016 Love All? [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/16fbe6261dac75a26854c8af6/images/fccc8064-bf5…] Fyodor Dostoevsky: Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light.... If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.... And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.* Journer: I cannot love all, especially the growing Hitlers across the globe. Nez: St. Francis, Gandhi, Mandela and St. Teresa learned to love all-at least more than most of us. Let us especially learn love at home and at our places of religion, now that hate grows at an accelerating pace on Earth. Namaste ______ * The Brothers Karamazov, chp. 41 > read<http://www.online-literature.com/dostoevsky/brothers_karamazov/41/> under g) on the page Image: source<https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Karamazov-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140445277> ***** We celebrate the profound journey of Frank Bremner, whose memorial service is today. All is well. ***** ________________________________ Xtra Blog Post: "Free Am I"<http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2009/07/freedom-left-to-choose.html> (Conchis) 3.8 million+ views from 199 countries/territories 4,493+ viewable blog posts since September 2004 JPC & LLC Links: [Website]<http://www.transcribebooks.com/> Website<http://www.transcribebooks.com/> [Books]<http://www.amazon.com/John-P.-Cock/e/B001K8Y5KW> Books<http://www.amazon.com/John-P.-Cock/e/B001K8Y5KW> [Facebook]<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Journey-Reflection/263036227044839> Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Journey-Reflection/263036227044839> [Twitter]<http://www.twitter.com/transcribebooks> Twitter<http://www.twitter.com/transcribebooks> [Google Plus]<https://plus.google.com/u/0/114307312715975337692/posts> Google Plus<https://plus.google.com/u/0/114307312715975337692/posts> [http://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-facebook-48.png]<http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Feepurl.com%2FchW-Ij> Share<http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Feepurl.com%2FchW-Ij> [http://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-twitter-48.png]<http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Journey+Reflection+9.30.2016:%20http%3…> Tweet<http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Journey+Reflection+9.30.2016:%20http%3…> [http://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-googleplus-48.p…]<https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Feepurl.com%2FchW-Ij> +1<https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Feepurl.com%2FchW-Ij> [http://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-forwardtofriend…]<http://us8.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=16fbe6261dac75a26854c8af6&id=67d…> Forward<http://us8.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=16fbe6261dac75a26854c8af6&id=67d…> Copyright © 2016 Transcribe Books, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Transcribe Books P O Box 2333 Davidson, NC 28036 Add us to your address book<http://transcribebooks.us8.list-manage.com/vcard?u=16fbe6261dac75a26854c8af…> unsubscribe from this list<http://blogspot.us8.list-manage1.com/unsubscribe?u=16fbe6261dac75a26854c8af…>

1 1

Solitary office
by Jaime R Vergara via OE 01 Dec '16

01 Dec '16

Rod, not quite of the Amazon book store means, but if you have an extra copy of the Solitary Office book you bound, stick one on the "slow boat to China" here in Saipan (US territory), and I might just start getting you printed. I registered a Language Studio/Earthbound Enterprises two years ago, and I think I will activate them as a "publishing" concern soon. So this note to Rod applies to anyone who has published something and see if we can get it cheaply disseminated. Physiological challenges got me to stop working September 30, and I think I will survive another five years before letting the mystery of life takes over. Take care. Jaime Vergara P. O. Box 503717 Saipan MP 96950 wangzhimu2031 earthrise consciousness, a gift; earthbound commitment, my choice yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!

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"Journey Reflection" Most Read Blog Posts (November)
by John C via OE 30 Nov '16

30 Nov '16

1 0

(no subject)
by ICA International via OE 27 Nov '16

27 Nov '16

Reminder for entries This reminder is for the Global Buzz that will be published December 5th. 2016 (Please send your entries at least a day ahead) Please send all your entries by regular e-mail to: inform(a)ica-international.org with your entry as an attatchment. 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. Peter, for ICAI Communications Pour les entrées de rappel Ce rappel est à la Global Buzz qui sera publié le 5 Décembre 2016 (Veuillez envoyer vos entrées au moins une journée à l'avance) Veuillez envoyer toutes vos entrées maintenant par courriel ordinaire à : inform(a)ica-international.org avec votre entrée comme un attatchment. Envoyer les détails des articles de nouvelles, des programmes de formation, vos connexions peer to peer avec d'autres CIAS, de toute préoccupation que vous pourriez avoir et de tous les événements qui sont à venir à votre emplacement. Votre rapport peut être longue ou courte, mais rappelez-vous que toutes les autres CIAS aimerait vraiment savoir à propos de choses qui importe où vous êtes et ce que vous faites comme une ICA. Recordatorio de las entradas Este aviso es para el Global Buzz que se publicarán 5 Diciembre 2016 (Favor de enviar sus entradas al menos con un día de antelación) Por favor envíe todos sus entradas ahora por correo electrónico a: inform(a)ica-international.org con su entrada como un archivo adjunto. Enviar detalles de noticias, programas de capacitación, el peer to peer las conexiones con otros convenios o acuerdos internacionales, las preocupaciones que usted pueda tener y de los eventos que se aproximan en su ubicación. El informe puede ser a corto o largo, pero hay que recordar que todos los demás convenios quisiera saber realmente sobre lo que realmente importa, y lo que están haciendo una ICA.

1 0

Australian colleagues: a wuestion
by Judi White via OE 27 Nov '16

27 Nov '16

Are these birds with the red legs wadba or jarmu?

5 8

Re: [Oe List ...] ICA Global Archives - Declaration of the SpiritMovement
by Rod Rippel via OE 25 Nov '16

25 Nov '16

I have complied a comb-bound book of the Solitary Office with daily Propers for an entire year. The book has a short Foreword, Preface of definitions, etc., etc.., The daily readings are those complied from circa 1972, College and Summer program selections. Suggestions for using the SO as a daily discipline and extending one’s personal reflections and responses are included. My intention was to use the book as gifts to friends or colleagues. I do not claim authorship...only as a compiler of EI/OE research. QUESTION: What are the copyright issues involved, if any? Should I request an ICA imprimatur? Rod Rippel From: Beret Griffith via OE Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2016 7:53 AM To: O:E List Subject: [Oe List ...] ICA Global Archives - Declaration of the SpiritMovement Many early documents are on Wedgeblade.net at: https://wedgeblade.net/gold_path/data/pathways.htm for...The Declaration of the Spirit Movement document text go directly to: https://wedgeblade.net/gold_path/data/hisj/101184.htm There is an amazing amount of information on Golden Pathways, thanks to the early archive team who unearthed the documentation and preserved it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Salmon: Decisions, Decisions!
by William Salmon via OE 24 Nov '16

24 Nov '16

Rod-- Can't decide authorship? I've read your inquiry several times having faced it when I've used EI/ICA materials. My decision was to acknowledge the source. Yet, the Emerging Generation song kept playing in the back of my mind: FREE TO DECIDE* Tune: Hi, Ho Nobody Home Free, free, free to decide What this world is going to be; This imperative is ours To be free, free . . . (Repeat) This song is best sung as a round. OH, nuts! I just used Order Youth material. I guess I am, "Free, free, free to decide. . . " Rod--Like other Order Members, I'd like a copy of what you have done for all of us. Let me know the costs involved and I'll send you the money; and a whole lot sooner than we used to pay the Order materials bills, and etc. Inner Peace, Bill Salmon * Order Songbook: "The Singing of Those Who Care." Like most of the materials we developed and used, we neglected the necessary information such as the Date Printed. Ah, such is my life! wes ----- Original Message ----- From: Rod Rippel via OE To: oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2016 5:25 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] Attn. Beret Griffith re OE Solitary Office I have complied a comb-bound book of the Solitary Office with daily Propers for an entire year. The book has a short Foreword, Preface of definitions, etc., etc.., The daily readings are those complied from circa 1972, College and Summer program selections. Suggestions for using the SO as a daily discipline and extending one’s personal reflections and responses are included. My intention was to use the book as gifts to friends or colleagues. I do not claim authorship...only as a compiler of EI/OE research. QUESTION: What are the copyright issues involved, if any? Should I request an ICA imprimatur? Rod Rippel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2016.0.7859 / Virus Database: 4664/13440 - Release Date: 11/19/16

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11/24/16, Spong/Matthew Fox: A New Christianity, a New Prayer Bishop Spong Style
by Ellie Stock via OE 24 Nov '16

24 Nov '16

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Bishop John Shelby Spong</p> <p>In his book <em>A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How A New Faith is Being Born</em>, Bishop Spong addresses multiple issues worthy of further consideration especially because the coming year 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and Spong is rightly calling for a Reformation today.<span style="font-size:12px">(1)</span> I suppose it is worth mentioning that I have been doing the same as in my book <em>A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity</em> which contains the 95 theses that I pounded at Luther’s church in Wittenberg at Pentecost season in 2006 in response to Cardinal Ratzinger making himself pope, a practice I repeated five years later at Cardinal Law’s Basilica of Maria Maggiore in Rome on a Sunday morning in protest of his cover-up for pedophile clergy in his previous assignment as archbishop of Boston.<span style="font-size:12px">(2)</span></p> <p>Let me highlight one of Spong’s important insights for a New Christianity by interacting with the chapter from his book entitled “<em>But What About Prayer</em>?” (Chapter Eleven). Spong speaks of how his understanding of prayer underwent a deep metamorphosis as he moved out of a theistic understanding of God. Following are some of his observations:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>I struggle to think of God in non-theistic patterns while I continue to be a praying, worshiping Christian… Somehow prayer and liturgy are the places where the non-theistic God-concept most obviously collides with the religious security system erected by the worshipers of the theistic God…To whom do we pray? is at the heart of questions asked by those considering abandonment of theism… I get the impression that many believers think of prayers as adult letters to Santa Claus. (Page 190)</em></p> </blockquote> <p>Spong invokes Paul’s admonition to “pray always”- an admonition also found in Luke’s gospel which goes like this:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to the chosen ones who cry out day and night? Will God delay long in helping them? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.” Luke (18:1–8).</em></p> </blockquote> <p>In creating a story about “praying always and not losing heart” the words justice and injustice are used by Jesus over five times in a short paragraph. Paul too used the term “pray always” on a number of occasions.</p> <p>So what is prayer? If we see it as “talking to God,” it makes no sense. Talking all day long to God would justify putting you in a padded cell. Spong is offering a parallel observation when he declares that “theism is dead… But theism is also a security blanket with which we are loathe to part.” (Page 192)</p> <p>But if prayer is about demanding justice and working for justice then “praying always” makes all the sense in the world. Justice and the quest for justice seize our lives and dictate our values and work, our allies and enemies, our struggle and our learning all our lives long.</p> <p>Like Spong, I feel that how we understand prayer lies at the heart of our theological and spiritual identity. In fact, my first book was dedicated to the question raised in this book – what is prayer? In that book, with the unlikely title of <em>On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style</em>, I defined prayer as a “radical (or deep) response to Life” and I name two of our deepest responses to living are our YES (our mysticism, our falling in love with life); and our NO, our resistance, our standing up for justice and against injustice. I still hold to that definition for prayer today forty-three years later and the Gospel passage I just cited I think is saying the same thing.</p> <p>To stand up for justice is to “pray always” and to listen deeply to the beauty and awe that life offers us daily is also to “pray always.” Consider Standing Rock; Black Lives Matter; Sister Dorothy Stang who was murdered eleven years ago in the Amazon because she stood up with the peasants of the land against the rape of the rainforests and the abuse toward peasant farmers; and she paid the price of a martyr. BUT she was not just about justice; she was about love; she loved the rain forest and the earth and the peasants whom she refused to abandon. I know because she was part of our master’s program in Creation Spirituality and she wrote about her passion for the earth. She would often dance in the forest that she loved so much. “Greater love than this no person has, than to lay down their life for their friends.”</p> <p>Who are our friends? What/whom do we truly cherish and would we stand up to defend? Those questions lie behind the depths of our prayer and the directions our prayer takes us. Rabbi Heschel says that “praise precedes faith” and it is clear when dealing with justice that love precedes justice for we defend what we cherish. Furthermore, love follows on justice for justice is not an end in itself but a resetting of the table so that more people can experience the depth of their love of life and the joy and beauty that life can bestow on all beings.</p> <p>It is this dialectic of love or mysticism and of spiritual warrior-hood—defending what we love—that constitutes authentic adult spirituality and adult prayer: It is our deep Yes and our deep No, therefore our “radical (deep) response to life.” I am in full agreement with Spong and other mystics through the ages (Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart and Howard Thurman among them) who understand God as Life. We are all mystics and prophets. Our deep response to life is our prayer.</p> <p>Writer E. B. White once said, “I wake up in the morning torn between savoring the world; and saving it. This makes it hard to plan the day.” Yes, savoring is our contemplation, our mysticism; saving it is our prophetic work of sacred activism. We need both. Our prophetic work must come from a deep place, a place of prayer therefore and NOT from an action/reaction response of our reptilian brains. There’s enough of that going around. If we are ever-deepening lovers of life (mystics); and defenders of life (prophets or sacred activists), then we are a people who “pray always” and we can “take heart” in trying times.</p> <p>Spong proposes turning to more mystical traditions to find a deeper understanding of prayer and speaks of meditation, contemplation and “centering prayer.” (Page 193) Here we are speaking of the Via Negativa, the letting go and surrendering that is part of that journey into an unknown God, into darkness, into the depths of unknowing. His call for “a new definition of prayer” is what I have been about in my writings and my educational programs ever since I wrote my first book (whose title has sobered up a bit in the most recent edition of the book which is simply: “<em>Prayer: A Radical Response to Life</em>.”) Rightly does Spong criticize those understandings of prayer that propose that we can “manipulate and control God by receiving a payoff.” (Page 194) Meister Eckhart observed the same thing when he said many people love God like they do a cow—for the cheese and milk they can get from it. But, said Eckhart, “truth does not long for any kind of commercial deals.”<span style="font-size:12px">(3) </span>We must learn to live and work and love, says Eckhart, “without a why.”<span style="font-size:12px">(4)</span> And this applies to prayer also. Spong is in good company.</p> <p>Spong also proposes that the “second coming” is meant to be “the same God who was present in Jesus who comes again into our world in us and through us… Can we dare to embrace the possibility that we ourselves might be the second coming of Christ?” (Page 194) This is exactly the thesis I laid out in my book <em>The Coming of the Cosmic Christ</em>— if we are other Christs- which is what we are called to be- then the second coming is our coming alive and real, deep and committed both to a radical love of life and to a deep defending of life, thus to both our deepest mystical and prophetic selves. As we undergo this deepening on a daily, a yearly, a seasonal basis, we are changed and history might be change through us. As Spong puts it, “change in who I am brings change in what I can do.” (Page 200)</p> <p>~Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox</p> <p>About the Author:</p> <p>Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. </p> <hr> <p><span style="font-size:12px">(1) John Shelby Spong, <em>A New Christianity For a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born</em> (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12px">(2) I tell the fuller story and list my theses in <em>Matthew Fox, A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity</em> (Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2006). And I include the Rome event in <em>Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest</em> (Berkeley, Ca: North Atlantic Books, 2015), 379-380.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12px">(3) See Sermon 32: “Driving Merchants Mentalities from Our Souls: Economics and Compassion” in <em>Matthew Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart </em>(Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions, 2000), 451.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12px">(4) See ibid., 202-212.</span></p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><hr> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">David from Jamaica, W.I. writes:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>If the Virgin Birth is not true, then how could Christ, in his completely human conceived state, accomplish salvation for mankind?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear David,</p> <p>Your question assumes that it was the Virgin Birth, which made Christ divine. I think it was the experience people had of meeting God in Jesus that created the narratives of the Virgin Birth. That tradition represents a primitive first century attempt to answer the question how it was that God got into Jesus so that people could have a God experience with Jesus. It is interesting to me that only Matthew and Luke resort to this explanation. Paul says only that Jesus was "born of a woman, born under the law." Mark says that God entered him at the time of the baptism when the heavens opened and the Spirit descended. John says he was the pre-existent Word or Logos, and described him in the Johanine text on two occasions as "the son of Joseph."</p> <p>It is fascinating to me to note that the portraits of the most divine Christ in the New Testament are drawn by Paul, who appears never to have heard of the miraculous tradition of Jesus birth and by John who dismissed the virgin birth tradition in favor of the pre-existent Jesus.</p> <p>The deeper question you need to raise is who is God that we experienced the divine presence in Jesus? But that would take longer than a Q & A column will allow. I do cover that in great detail in my book, Born of A Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth and the Place of Women in a Male Dominated Church.</p> <p>~John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <span style="font-size:18px">Join Bishop John Shelby Spong as he takes us on a journey to the times of Jesus’ birth ... click below image to purchase book.</span> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="400" style="width: 266px;height: 400px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="266" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/a892aa7e-9d4…"></a> </div> Bishop Spong continues his recovery and wants to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. If you would like to send Bishop Spong a get well note please sent it to <a href="mailto:admin@progressivechristianity.org">admin(a)progressivechristianity.org</a> and we will forward it to him.</div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: left;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_d0e3f49c-05d5-4d73-a52f-b9d92a4bebce td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Trump disaster aftermath: here's another piece (Nov 23) by the Guardian journalist and environmental and political activist George Monbiot
by Adam Thomson via OE 23 Nov '16

23 Nov '16

From Adam Thomson, Dover South-East England Here's another piece by the Guardian journalist and environmental and political activist George Monbiot: Trump's Climate Denial is just one of the Forces that Points towards War "The failure to get to grips with our crises, by all mainstream political parties, is likely to lead to a war between the major powers in my lifetime" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/23/donald-trump-climate-… With love to all, Adam Thomson, Dover England

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