April 2017 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Easter Monday 2017
by James Wiegel via OE 17 Apr '17

17 Apr '17

There is a line, in the 5th City Video, by Harold Washington while he is dedicating the shopping center. Something happens off camera -- a bus or something goes by -- causing him to stop and laugh, and he shakes his head and comments, "Nothing like being Mayor of Chicago!" Thanks for the Easter posts -- Nothing like being on these wedgeblade listserves . . . and a quote read by the lead musician yesterday: Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don't throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don't do it exuberantly in our worship?" -NT Wright Surprised By Hope Jim Wiegel Sent: Monday, April 17, 2017 4:35 AM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] An Easter gift =20 Thank you for this witness, George. Among the many wisdom teachers, Jesus, = Buddha, Mohammad and many more, you are included.=C2=A0 Loving the continua= tion image of resurrection. Helps to embrace the sermons on promises of ete= rnal life. Peace, Judi White On Apr 16, 2017 6:53 PM, "George Holcombe via OE" <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>= wrote: In our service this Easter morning at a Presbyterian church we sang a hymn = written by a Methodist (Jesus Christ is Risen Today) and a closing hymn by = a Muslim (Morning Has Broken) and following the Scripture reading of John 2= 0 this quote (below). A profound sermon, and a fuller understanding of the = idea of resurrection.Thich Nhat Hang, Zen monk"I think there's a way of tra= ining ourselves in order not to become the victim of fear and grief- that i= s to look deeply into ourselves and to see that we are made of non-self ele= ments. And when we look around ourselves, we can recognize ourselves in the= non-self elements, like a father looking at his children can see himself i= n his children, can see his continuation in his children. So he is not atta= ched to the idea that his body is the only thing that is him. He's more tha= n his body.He is inside of his body but he is also at the same (time) outsi= de of his body in many elements. And if we have the habit of looking like t= hat we will not be the victim of our attachment to one form of manifestatio= n, and we will be free. And that freedom makes happiness and peace possible= .. Other than meditation is there any specific practicer that can help you c= ome to this understanding?Yes. The Buddha advised us to bear in mind that e= verything is impermanent, that nothing has an absolute entity that remains = the same. And when we keep that insight in mind, we can see more deeply int= o the nature of reality, and we will not be locked in the notion that we ar= e only this body, this life span is the only life span we have. In fact, be= cause nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself a= lone, everyone has to inter-be with envy one else. That is why, when you lo= ok outside, around, you can see yourself. And when you look into yourself, = you can see the outside. So that is a training.=E2=80=9D George Holcombe geowanda1(a)me.com "Whatever the problem, community is=C2=A0the answer.=C2=A0 There is no powe= r greater=C2=A0than a community discovering what it=C2=A0cares about." =C2= =A0Margaret Wheatley On Apr 16, 2017, at 2:33 PM, Doris Hahn via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wr= ote: >From Doris Hahn -=C2=A0 Pat Moriarty asked me to Pass this link along to you;so here it is: http://www.justathoughtbypat.c om/wp-admin/post.php?post=3D1913 &action=3De= dit ______________________________ _________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/ listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net ______________________________ _________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/ listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net =20 ------=_Part_1878509_1302938865.1492442344614 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html><head></head><body><div style=3D"color:#000; background-color:#fff; f= ont-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font= -size:16px"><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6555"><span id=3D"yu= i_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6554">There is a line, in the 5th City Video,= by Harold Washington while he is dedicating the shopping center.  Som= ething happens off camera -- a bus or something goes by -- causing him to s= top and laugh, and he shakes his head and comments, "Nothing like being May= or of Chicago!"</span></div><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6555= "><span><br></span></div><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6555"><= span id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9047">Thanks for the Easter post= s -- Nothing like being on these wedgeblade list serves!!</span></div><div>= </div><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6592"> </div><div id= =3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6592"><div style=3D"font-family: "= Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida = Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(= 69, 69, 69);" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9215" dir=3D"ltr"><span= style=3D"font-size: 17pt;" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9216">. .= . and a quote from the lead musician yesterday:  "Is it any wonder pe= ople find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don=E2=80= =99t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live th= e resurrection if we don=E2=80=99t do it exuberantly in our worship?"</span= ></div><div style=3D"font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe U= I", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size= : 13px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(69, 69, 69);" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19= _1_1492441944070_9217"><span style=3D"font-size: 17pt;" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym= 19_1_1492441944070_9218"><br id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9219"></= span></div><div style=3D"font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Seg= oe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-= size: 13px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(69, 69, 69);" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_= ym19_1_1492441944070_9220"><span style=3D"font-size: 17pt;" id=3D"yui_3_16_= 0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9221">-NT Wright</span></div><div style=3D"font-fami= ly: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, &qu= ot;Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; c= olor: rgb(69, 69, 69);" dir=3D"ltr" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9= 222"><span style=3D"font-size: 17pt;" id=3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070= _9223">"Surprised By Hope"</span></div></div><div class=3D"signature" id=3D= "yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6622"><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blank= " href=3D"http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=3D123">Jim Wiegel</a>=  <br><div class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-bottom:0.0001pt;" id=3D= "yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6624"><span style=3D"font-family:Helvetica= Neue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;line-= height:18.3999996185303px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);" id=3D"yui_3= _16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_6623">=E2=80=9CIf you want an adventure . . . wh= at a time to be alive!=E2=80=9D. Joanna Macy</span></div><br><span style=3D= "font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;background-color:white;" id= =3D"yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1492441944070_9327">401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, A= rizona 85353</span><div class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-bottom:0.0001pt= ;background:white;"><span style=3D"font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial, sans-s= erif;">623-363-3277</span><span style=3D"font-size:14.5pt;font-family:'Sego= e UI', sans-serif;"></span></div><div class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-b= ottom:0.0001pt;background:white;"><span style=3D"font-size:14.5pt;font-fami= ly:Arial, sans-serif;"><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto= :marilyn.oyler@gmail.com"><span style=3D"color:blue;">jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com</s= pan></a></span><span style=3D"font-size:14.5pt;font-family:'Segoe UI', sans= -serif;"></span></div><div class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-bottom:0.000= 1pt;background:white;"><span style=3D"font-size:14.5pt;font-family:Arial, s= ans-serif;"><span style=3D"font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;"><a rel=3D"nofollow= " target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/">www.pa= rtnersinparticipation.com</a></span></span></div><br><div><div id=3D"yui_3_= 16_0_1_1423152614990_64964" style=3D"font-family:'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe U= I', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;font-size:13px;background= -color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span id=3D"yui_3_16_0_1_1423152614990_64963"><= a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://partnersinparticipation= ..com/?page_id=3D10">Upcoming ToP training opportunities in Arizona</a></spa= n></div><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_1_1423152614990_64964" style=3D"font-family:'= Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;= font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div id=3D"y= ui_3_16_0_1_1423152614990_64969" style=3D"font-family:'Helvetica Neue', 'Se= goe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;font-size:13px;backg= round-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);">More info on:</div><div id=3D"yui_3_16_0_1= _1423152614990_64976" style=3D"font-family:'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', He= lvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color= :rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div></div><div><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_b= lank" href=3D"http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=3D48">ToP=C2=AE F= acilitation Methods</a> </div><div><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blan= k" href=3D"http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=3D50">ToP=C2=AE Stra= tegic Planning</a>: </div><div><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blank" h= ref=3D"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DCz3mniiYCdI">Mastering the Technol= ogy of Participation</a>  </div><div><br></div><div><a rel=3D"nofollow= " target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://www.top-training.net/">Register on line = / see the ToP National Schedule</a></div><div>AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for al= l ToP=C2=AE courses</div><div><br></div><div><a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"= _blank" href=3D"http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=3D203">The AZ T= oP=C2=AE Community of Practice</a> meets the 1st Friday, of every month, 1-= 4 pm, at ACYR, <a rel=3D"nofollow" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"https://www.go= ogle.com/maps/place/648+N+5th+Ave/@33.456329,-112.080545,16z/data=3D!4m2!3m= 1!1s0x872b123a5312512d:0x93c9f71171108956?hl=3D">648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix= , AZ 85003</a></div><div><br></div></div><div class=3D"qtdSeparateBR"><br><= br></div><div class=3D"yahoo_quoted" style=3D"display: block;"> <div style= =3D"font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-seri= f; font-size: 16px;"> <div style=3D"font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica N= eue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div d= ir=3D"ltr"> <font size=3D"2" face=3D"Arial"> <hr size=3D"1"> <b><span style= =3D"font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Judi White via OE <oe(a)lists.wedg= eblade.net><br> <b><span style=3D"font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Ord= er Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; George Holcombe &l= t;geowanda1(a)me.com> <br> <b><span style=3D"font-weight: bold;">Sent:</sp= an></b> Monday, April 17, 2017 4:35 AM<br> <b><span style=3D"font-weight: b= old;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Oe List ...] An Easter gift<br> </font> </di= v> <div class=3D"y_msg_container"><br><div id=3D"yiv0199286726"><div><div>T= hank you for this witness, George. Among the many wisdom teachers, Jesus, B= uddha, Mohammad and many more, you are included.  Loving the continuat= ion image of resurrection. Helps to embrace the sermons on promises of eter= nal life. Peace, Judi White</div><div class=3D"yiv0199286726gmail_extra"><b= r clear=3D"none"><div class=3D"yiv0199286726gmail_quote">On Apr 16, 2017 6:= 53 PM, "George Holcombe via OE" <<a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" ymai= lto=3D"mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto:oe@= lists.wedgeblade.net">oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:<br clear=3D"no= ne"><blockquote class=3D"yiv0199286726gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8= ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class=3D"yiv019928672= 6yqt8646904779" id=3D"yiv0199286726yqt35099"><div style=3D"word-wrap:break-= word;"><div style=3D"font-family:'San Francisco', -apple-system, BlinkMacSy= stemFont, sans-serif;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-size:14px;letter-spacing:-0.2= 3999999463558197px;white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073= 230402283814399_1mj yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mf" style=3D"direct= ion:ltr;font-family:inherit;"><span style=3D"font-family:inherit;">In our s= ervice this Easter morning at a Presbyterian church we sang a hymn written = by a Methodist (Jesus Christ is Risen Today) and a closing hymn by a Muslim= (Morning Has Broken) and following the Scripture reading of John 20 this q= uote (below). A profound sermon, and a fuller understanding of the idea of = resurrection.</span></div></div><div style=3D"font-family:'San Francisco', = -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-size= :14px;letter-spacing:-0.23999999463558197px;white-space:pre-wrap;"><div cla= ss=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mj yiv0199286726m_807323040228381= 4399_1mf" style=3D"direction:ltr;font-family:inherit;"><span style=3D"font-= family:inherit;">Thich Nhat Hang, Zen monk</span></div></div><div style=3D"= font-family:'San Francisco', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif;= color:rgb(29,33,41);font-size:14px;letter-spacing:-0.23999999463558197px;wh= ite-space:pre-wrap;"><div class=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mj y= iv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mf" style=3D"direction:ltr;font-family:i= nherit;"><span style=3D"font-family:inherit;">"I think there's a way of tra= ining ourselves in order not to become the victim of fear and grief- that i= s to look deeply into ourselves and to see that we are made of non-self ele= ments. And when we look around ourselves, we can recognize ourselves in the= non-self elements, like a father looking at his children can see himself i= n his children, can see his continuation in his children. So he is not atta= ched to the idea that his body is the only thing that is him. He's more th= an his body.He is inside of his body but he is also at the same (time) outs= ide of his body in many elements. And if we have the habit of looking like = that we will not be the victim of our attachment to one form of manifestati= on, and we will be free. And that freedom makes happiness and peace possibl= e. Other than meditation is there any specific practicer that can help you = come to this understanding?</span></div></div><div style=3D"font-family:'Sa= n Francisco', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif;color:rgb(29,33= ,41);font-size:14px;letter-spacing:-0.23999999463558197px;white-space:pre-w= rap;"><div class=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mj yiv0199286726m_8= 073230402283814399_1mf" style=3D"direction:ltr;font-family:inherit;"><span = style=3D"font-family:inherit;">Yes. The Buddha advised us to bear in mind t= hat everything is impermanent, that nothing has an absolute entity that rem= ains the same. And when we keep that insight in mind, we can see more deepl= y into the nature of reality, and we will not be locked in the notion that = we are only this body, this life span is the only life span we have. In fac= t, because nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or hers= elf alone, everyone has to inter-be with envy one else. That is why, when y= ou look outside, around, you can see yourself. And when you look into yours= elf, you can see the outside. So that is a training.=E2=80=9D</span></div><= div class=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399_1mj yiv0199286726m_80732304= 02283814399_1mf" style=3D"direction:ltr;font-family:inherit;"><span style= =3D"font-family:inherit;"><br clear=3D"none"></span></div></div><div> <div style=3D"color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-t= ransform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;word-wrap:break-word;">Ge= orge Holcombe<br clear=3D"none"><a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" ymailto= =3D"mailto:geowanda1@me.com" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto:geowanda1@me.= com">geowanda1(a)me.com</a><br clear=3D"none"><br clear=3D"none">"Whatever th= e problem, community is the answer.  There is no power greater&nb= sp;than a community discovering what it cares about."  Margaret W= heatley<br clear=3D"none"><br clear=3D"none"></div> </div> <br clear=3D"none"><div><blockquote type=3D"cite"><div>On Apr 16, 2017, at = 2:33 PM, Doris Hahn via OE <<a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" ymailto= =3D"mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto:oe@lis= ts.wedgeblade.net">oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:</div><br clear=3D= "none" class=3D"yiv0199286726m_8073230402283814399Apple-interchange-newline= "><div><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>From Doris Hahn - </div><div><br clear=3D= "none"></div>Pat Moriarty asked me to Pass this link along to you;so here i= t is:<div><br clear=3D"none"></div><div><div class=3D"yiv0199286726MsoNorma= l" style=3D"margin:13.6pt 0in 6.8pt;line-height:normal;"><a rel=3D"nofollow= " shape=3D"rect" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://www.justathoughtbypat.com= /wp-admin/post.php?post=3D1913&action=3Dedit" style=3D"font-size:12.8px= ;">http://www.justathoughtbypat.c om/wp-admin/post.php?post=3D1913 &act= ion=3Dedit</a><br clear=3D"none"></div></div></div> ______________________________ _________________<br clear=3D"none">OE maili= ng list<br clear=3D"none"><a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" ymailto=3D"mai= lto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto:OE@lists.wedg= eblade.net">OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a><br clear=3D"none"><a rel=3D"nofollo= w" shape=3D"rect" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://lists.wedgeblade.net/lis= tinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/ listinfo.cgi/oe-w= edgeblade.net</a><br clear=3D"none"></div></blockquote></div><br clear=3D"n= one"></div></div><br clear=3D"none">______________________________ ________= _________<br clear=3D"none"> OE mailing list<br clear=3D"none"> <a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" ymailto=3D"mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.ne= t" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net">OE(a)lists.wedge= blade.net</a><br clear=3D"none"> <a rel=3D"nofollow" shape=3D"rect" target=3D"_blank" href=3D"http://lists.w= edgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/ = listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net</a><br clear=3D"none"> <br clear=3D"none"></blockquote></div></div></div></div><div class=3D"yqt86= 46904779" id=3D"yqt84538">_______________________________________________<b= r clear=3D"none">OE mailing list<br clear=3D"none"><a shape=3D"rect" ymailt= o=3D"mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net" href=3D"mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net= ">OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net</a><br clear=3D"none"><a shape=3D"rect" href=3D"h= ttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net" target=3D"_blank= ">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net</a><br clear= =3D"none"></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></div></body></html> ------=_Part_1878509_1302938865.1492442344614--

1 0

An Easter gift
by Doris Hahn via OE 17 Apr '17

17 Apr '17

>From Doris Hahn - Pat Moriarty asked me to Pass this link along to you;so here it is: http://www.justathoughtbypat.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1913&action=edit

7 6

Kjell Knutsen: 1928 - 2016.
by Andrew Knutsen via OE 17 Apr '17

17 Apr '17

Hi, Knutsen family would like to share this celebration with the OE mailing list members. We are gathering this weekend in Boise, ID for two events to celebrate Kjell’s life. On Saturday, we will have a family memorial event, followed by a Sunday memorial service with Hillview Methodist Church. Kjell was part of the congregation and served as a visiting minister. Kjell is survived by his wife, Debbie Cheong, five sons - Lester, Andrew, Bernhard, Reinard, Svend. Kjell is survived by two siblings - Roger, younger brother living in Seattle and and Britt, older sister living in Oslo. There are six grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. Kjell’s celebrated his 88th birthday last year. We have a photo of him cradling his youngest grandson, Finely Parks Knutsen, born a few months earlier to Svend and Amanda. Here is my very brief summary of some chapter’s in Kjell life: Earliest chapters include growing up in Norway and living under German occupation during WW2. When he left Norway after WW2, he left to become an ordained minister and missionary, attending Garret Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois. Kjell met and married Margynell Bynum during this time. He was ordained in 1950, and was posted to Malaya as a Methodist missionary. During this time (1950 - 1987), Kjell and family served congregations in Taiping, Kuantan, Raub, Klang, and Seremban. All five sons were born in Malaysia. Our family attended the 1967 summer program in Chicago, interning in the Order while Kjell studied for his PhD. Kjell was part of the team that set up the Religious House in Petaling Jaya in 1968. He was part of teams that taught RS-1 courses, ITI’s, Academies and two early Human Develop Projects. Kjell married Debbie Cheong in 1977. Svend was born in 1982. His last position in Malaysia was Director of St. Nicholas School for the Blind in Penang. In 1988, Kjell began his Idaho chapter, serving a congregation in Emmett, followed by part time position with the Hillview Methodist Church in Boise. Kjell retired in 2009, beginning his golden years. Debbie is a public school teacher in Boise, Svend is married and raising a family with Amanda. Our family appreciates your emails and prayers. I will be collecting your emails and sharing them in printed and email formats with our family this weekend. Peace, Andrew ack2.trailhiker(a)gmail.com

5 4

Easter gifts for you, Beloved Virtual Community
by via OE 15 Apr '17

15 Apr '17

Went as a guest of my daughter-in-law to a Brethren Church last evening, for foot-washing and Maundy Thursday supper. Very sweet, very pious and I felt pretty conflicted. Had to keep reminding myself to uncross my arms. But what is Easter week for, if not reflection on self and society? Here are some articles I've wholeheartedly liked this week. My favorite is this timely and masterful example of imaginal education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?google_comment_id=z120gxw45pfnfxmni22xg5frnyb… Let's have a "Community Pondering" campaign to match Town Meeting 76: https://feminismandreligion.com/2017/04/13/the-nature-of-communal-pondering… And an oldie but goodie from Clarissa Pinkola Estes: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2195 Thanks for indulging me, Jann McGuire

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PEANUTS REVISED
by Frank Knutson via OE 13 Apr '17

13 Apr '17

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. ― Albert Einstein ❤ Frank

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Spong: (third article) "Easter: In Need of Reinterpretation!"; Bigger, Stronger, Wiser, Kinder
by Ellie Stock via OE 13 Apr '17

13 Apr '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Bigger, Stronger, Wiser, Kinder By Cassandra Farrin After a hard winter for many of us, of deep snows and lost loves, in this holy week commemorating death and resurrection, the cherries and pears and plums are blossoming and our thoughts are opening with them. What are we also becoming? In Chapter 4 of the Dhammapada, “Flowers,” the Buddha is said to have offered this teaching: A monk should dwell and act in the village, Like a bee extracting honey from the flower But leaving the flower and fragrance intact. Pay no attention to the harsh words uttered by others. Do not be concerned with what others have or have not done. Observe your own actions and inactions. Like a beautiful brightly colored flower without fragrance Is the well-spoken word without action. Like a beautiful brightly colored flower full of fragrance Is the well-spoken word and the deed that matches the word. When the Buddha says pay no attention… he does not conclude pay no attention to others but rather, pay no attention to the harsh words. Likewise, a bee extracting honey is not the same as a drill extracting oil. One action is certainly gentler than the other. When we are attentive to our words and actions, it should be an act of love. It’s the place to begin. Radical changes may be wrought on the world by beginning in this place, the blossoming of conscious words, actions, and inactions. I think we get truth backwards. Truth is not the root from which we grow but the fragrance from the bloom. In a sense, truth can be acknowledged only after an experience awakens our sense of it. The root is relationship—with others, with the world, with God. This is a difficult but important outcry at a time when we’re all wondering what it means to live in a society suddenly flooded with phrases like “post-truth” and “alt fact.” I feel the need to become grounded, and perhaps you do too, so please allow me to share a story with you that is grounding me through this painful time. Five years ago my twin sister and I adopted two children, 2 and barely 4 years old, who survived more violence in their most vulnerable years than I have in my entire life. Their birth family, Marshall Islanders who emigrated to the United States for work and lost their children due to neglect, could not have known that the kids would be placed with an abusive foster family. So the children’s suffering escalated from the bare pain of hunger to the acute pain of abuse. At the time we adopted our kids, the abuse had not yet been discovered, and we confronted each horrific revelation as it was unburied. Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned from our process of transitioning from Stranger/Other to Family was the meaning of our foster parent trainer Erma Brundidge’s mantra: “bigger, stronger, wiser, kinder.” Be the bigger person, be the stronger person, be the wiser person, be the kinder person in every situation—not just one of the four, but all four. Children who have suffered often relive their suffering because it is what they know, so when the children come into your home, you may find that they intentionally recreate the chaos that drove them through your door. Perhaps you know people like this. We often carry our childhood traumas into our adult lives. I remember lying in bed one night only a couple months into our adoption and suddenly realizing, much to my horror, that I was identifying with the abusive person who hurt my children instead of with my children themselves— Why? In the drama our new family was unwittingly playing out, the children were waiting for the monster to emerge, and we could sense the monster, too. We just didn’t know who or what it was. Let me circle back for a moment to our foster care and adoption training, because this is just so critical to understanding the rest of my family’s story. My sister and I joined that training with many other couples, of course, including several who had struggled for years to conceive. As these couples in particular shared about all the self-doubt and indignities of infertility treatment, it became clear that they were expecting a lot of their future adoptive child: this child would be the healer of their wounds. What a burden for a child! Yet also, can’t you just feel the ache of the would-be parents, too? Painfully, one couple was not accepted by the department as foster parents because their desire for a perfect, healing child was so overwhelming. How were they going to be “bigger, stronger, wiser, kinder” for a child who had suffered when their own suffering was so raw and intense they could barely see past it? Rainer Maria Rilke understood God as belonging to the world and often expressed God through the metaphor of roots and soil, as that from which could be drawn sustenance. He believed in the reciprocity of the mundane and the divine; God, too, can wither and fade like a plant without water or like a father forgotten by his son. Rather than saying, “God cannot be one who relies on me,” Rilke inverted darkness into one of relationship: Whom should I turn to if not the one whose darkness is darker than night. The only one who keeps vigil with no candle and is not afraid— Sometimes I imagine God as a foster child on that first night in a new home, wondering who is keeping “vigil with no candle” for her. She is a being capable of infinite love and grace and extraordinary action in the world, and yet in such absolute darkness she doesn’t even know who or what she is. Relationships make security—truth, understanding—possible for her, for us, for God. I sometimes also imagine God as the weave of all those relationships, and yet I think we have to appreciate that God is a living idea. I find it helpful to maintain the tension between God as a candle waiting to be lighted and as the light itself. Returning to my own family’s story, our breakthrough moment came when our daughter’s counselor encouraged us to believe that our children wanted our love and were not afraid of us. They were afraid of a monster none of us could see, and we—my sister and I—were mistaking ourselves for that monster. We felt the children’s fear; we just didn’t realize it was directed at something else. So we took responsibility for our own household and we set the tone of our family’s relationship as something other than fear. We began to demonstrate brazenly, excessively, wastefully, that here was a space for love, safety, and fun. And it worked. The terror that seemed to pursue us slowly dissipated, and home became a refuge for us all. Old patterns have a way of resurfacing under strain. Our family confronts these secret terrors whenever we lose our equilibrium, so mindfulness and connection have become critical to our survival. Yet it does work, and we are living proof of it. I hope that you can take some encouragement from this when you are feeling fearful. To speak the truth in power means to speak from one’s relationships first and foremost, by being “bigger, stronger, wiser, kinder,” and to set the tone for one’s own household and community. So let me once again ask, what are we becoming? ~ Cassandra Farrin Read Online Here About the Author Cassandra Farrin is the marketing director of the Westar Institute and the editor of Polebridge Press. Her poetic retelling of the Nag Hammadi text On the Origin of the World is forthcoming in Gender Violence, Rape Culture, and Religion (Palgrave Macmillan). A US-UK Fulbright Scholar with more than ten years’ experience with cross-cultural and interfaith engagement, she has an M.A. in Religious Studies from Lancaster University (England) and a B.A. in Religious Studies from Willamette University. Question & Answer Terry R. from the Internet, writes: Question: Hi Eric, I enjoy what you have been saying about Jesus, and I am becoming much more progressive than I used to be, but still I have a hard time understanding why someone with your beliefs still remains a Christian? If the Jesus you still “believe” in is not the Jesus that resurrected and was God incarnate, then why do you still call yourself a Christian? Answer: Answer by Eric Alexander Thanks Terry. That’s a very honest (and common) question I hear a lot. I would start by saying that I only use the word Christian casually. I call myself a lot of things depending on the context. As it relates to Jesus, I more often call myself a Jesist, which you can see more about here. But with the proper disclaimers, caveats, and addenda I don’t mind the word Christian either. Additionally, I feel a sense of responsibility to help spare the younger generations from much of the indoctrination and deconstruction that I had to go through. As someone who has become educated I want to keep a foot within Christianity and help guide it toward a more meaningful existence. If everyone who finds some degree of enlightenment bails out, then it only leaves behind the fundamentalist echo chamber, and that is a scary thought to me, both spiritually and politically. ~ Eric Alexander Read and Share Online Here About the Author Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and activist. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and authored the popular children's emotional health book Teaching Kids Life IS Good. Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Easter: In Need of Reinterpretation! The Christian Faith was born in the experience that we have come to call Easter. It was this Easter experience that invested Jesus with a sense of ultimacy. It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. It was the reason that Saint Paul could write, “if Christ has not been raised then your faith is in vain.” Clearly without Easter there would be no Christianity. That assertion hardly seems debatable. At this point I discover that I am at one with the most literal fundamentalists. What is debatable, however, is the question of what the experience of Easter really was. Here the distance between the Christianity of biblical scholarship and the Christianity of the fundamentalists opens and begins to widen. Fundamentalists are quite sure of their truth. On Easter the crucified Jesus, who was laid in the grave as a deceased man on Good Friday, was by the mighty act of God, restored to life on Easter. He had thus broken the power of death for all people. If the body of Jesus was not physically restored to life, the fundamentalists claim, then Easter is fraudulent. There can be no compromise here. Those who waver on this foundational truth of Christianity have, according to this perspective, abandoned the essential core of their faith tradition. Well, my only comment on this would be to borrow the words from an old song and say, “It ain’t necessarily so!” When one reads the New Testament in the order in which these books were written, a fascinating progression is revealed. Paul, for example, writing between the years 50 and 64 or some 20 to 34 years after the earthly life of Jesus came to an end, never describes the resurrection of Jesus as a physical body resuscitated after death. There is no hint in the Pauline corpus that one, who had died, later walked out of his grave clothes, emerged from the tomb and was seen by his disciples. What Paul does suggest is that Easter meant that God had acted to reverse the verdict that the world had pronounced on Jesus by raising Jesus from death into God. It was, therefore, out of God in a transforming kind of heavenly vision that this Jesus then appeared to certain chosen witnesses. Paul enumerates these witnesses and, in a telling detail, says that this was the same Jesus that Paul himself had seen. No one suggests that Paul ever saw a resuscitated body. The Pauline corpus later says, “If you then have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Please note that the story of the Ascension had not been written when these Pauline words were formed. Paul did not envision the Resurrection as Jesus being restored to life in this world but as Jesus being raised into God. It was not an event in time but a transcendent and transforming truth. Paul died, according to our best estimates, around the year 64 C.E. The first Gospel was not written until the early 70’s. Paul never had a chance to read the Easter story in any Gospel. The tragedy of later Christian history is that we read Paul through the lens of the Gospels. Thus we have both distorted Paul and also confused theology. When Mark, the first Gospel, was written the Risen Christ never appears. The last time Jesus is seen comes when his deceased body is taken from the cross and laid in the tomb. Mark’s account of the Resurrection presents us with the narrative of mourning women confronting an empty tomb, meeting a messenger who tells them that Jesus has been raised and asking these women to convey to the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. Mark then concludes his Gospel with a picture of these women fleeing in fear, saying nothing to anyone (16:1-8). So abrupt was this ending that people began to write new endings to what they thought was Mark’s incomplete story. Two of those endings are actually reproduced in the King James Version of the Bible as verses 9-20. But thankfully, these later creations have been removed from the text of Mark in recent Bibles and placed into footnotes. The sure fact of New Testament scholarship is that Mark’s Gospel ended without the Risen Christ ever being seen by anyone. Both Matthew, who wrote between 80-85, and Luke, who wrote between 88-92, had Mark to guide their compositions. Both changed, heightened and expanded Mark. It is fascinating to lift those changes into consciousness and to ask what was it that motivated Matthew and Luke to transform Mark’s narrative. Did they have new sources of information? Had the story grown over the years in the retelling? The first thing to note is that Matthew changes Mark’s story about the women at the tomb. First, the messenger in Mark becomes a supernatural angel in Matthew’s story. Next Matthew says the women do see Jesus in the garden. They grasp him by the feet and worship him. This is the first time in Christian history that the Resurrection is presented as physical resuscitation. It occurs in the 9th decade of the Christian era. It should be noted that it took more than 50 years to begin to interpret the Easter experience as the resuscitated body of the deceased Jesus. When Matthew presents the story of the risen Jesus to the disciples, it is on a mountaintop in Galilee where he appears out of the sky armed with heavenly power. Recall once again that when Matthew wrote this narrative the story of Jesus’ ascension had not yet entered the tradition. Luke follows Mark’s story line about the women at the tomb, stating that they do not see Jesus in the garden on Easter morning. Luke, however, has turned Mark’s messenger into two angelic beings. He has also transferred the locale of Easter to Jerusalem specifically denying Mark’s words spoken through the messenger that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. Luke has heightened dramatically the physicality of Jesus’ resuscitated body. In Luke, the resuscitated Jesus walks, talks, eats, teaches and interprets. He also appears and disappears at will. He invites the disciples to handle his flesh. He asserts that he is not a ghost. Finally in order to remove this physically resuscitated Jesus from the earth, Luke develops the story of Jesus’ Ascension. Even in the Ascension narrative, however, Luke is not consistent. In the last chapter of his Gospel the Ascension takes place on Easter Sunday afternoon. In the first chapter of Acts, which Luke also writes, the Ascension takes place 40 days after Easter. Whereas the messenger in Mark, who becomes an angel in Matthew, directs the disciples to Galilee for a meeting with the risen Christ, Luke specifically denies any Galilean resurrection tradition. He orders the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they are endowed with power from on high. The narrative is clearly growing. In John, the Fourth Gospel (95-100), the physicality of the Resurrection is even more enhanced. In the 20th chapter of this Gospel Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene in the garden and says to her, “Mary do not cling to me.” One cannot cling to something that is non-physical. Then John suggests that Jesus ascends immediately into heaven before appearing, presumably out of heaven, that night to the disciples, who are missing Thomas. Though Jesus appears able to enter an upper room in which the windows have been closed and the doors locked, he is once again portrayed as being quite physical. This physical quality is further enhanced a week later when Jesus makes a second appearance to the disciples, this time with Thomas present. It is in this narrative that Thomas is invited to touch the nail prints and to examine the place in his side into which the spear had been hurled. All of these appearances take place in Jerusalem. Chapter 21 of John’s Gospel portrays a Galilean appearance much later in time after the disciples have actually returned to their fishing trade. Here Jesus directs them to a great catch of fish, 153 of them to be specific. Then he eats with them. Finally he restores Peter after his three-fold denial. The Easter story appears to have grown rather dramatically over the years. Something happened after the crucifixion of Jesus that convinced the disciples that Jesus shared in the eternal life of God and was thus available to them as a living presence. This experience was so profound that the disciples, who at his arrest had fled in fear, were now reconstituted and empowered even to die for the truth of their vision. This experience had the power to force the Jewish disciples to redefine the God of the Jews so that Jesus could be seen as part of who God is. Finally this experience was so profound that it ultimately created, on the first day of the week, a new holy day that was quite different from the Sabbath, to enable Christians to mark this transforming moment with a liturgical act called “the breaking of bread.” When these biblical data are assembled and examined closely, two things become clear. First something of enormous power gripped the disciples following the crucifixion that transformed their lives. Second, it was some fifty years before that transforming experience was interpreted as the resuscitation of a three days dead Jesus to the life of the world. Our conversation about the meaning of Easter must begin where these two realities meet. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements NOW! Single Day Passes Available - click here Click here for more information/registration READ ON... Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)progressivechristianity.org or 253-507-8678. Copyright © 2017 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW #80 Gig Harbor, WA 98335 Add us to your address book If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account. This email was sent to elliestock(a)aol.com why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences ProgressiveChristianity.org · 4810 Pt. Fosdick Dr. NW · #80 · Gig Harbor, WA 98335 · USA

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ARCHIVAL ITEM
by Frank Knutson via OE 12 Apr '17

12 Apr '17

Looking through “stuff”, found this. Memories! “Illusions are the way we maintain our sanity when reality bursts in.” ❤ Frank

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Re: [Oe List ...] Chronological History - Corrections and Additions
by via OE 11 Apr '17

11 Apr '17

Beret, Fred and I set up, recruited, hosted an RS-1 course in spring of 1969, I believe, in Ouro Preto, Brazil, taught by Jim and Lela Campbell who were on a teaching tour of South America. It was Gil and Lynn Woltjer into to E.I. When they returned to Berkeley, they participated in a galaxy church cadre there with Dan and Diane Smith and the Trussels. This is my first dive into the timeline. Will keep looking. Paul Noah took a lot of my posters last time he was here with Frank Knutson. Jann McGuire -----Original Message----- From: Beret Griffith via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: O:E List <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>; Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sun, Apr 2, 2017 4:01 pm Subject: [Oe List ...] Chronological History - Corrections and Additions Dear Colleagues, It has been two years since the Chronological History was published. David Dunn and I are starting the revision process. If you have sent corrections and additions we have been saving the emails and notes for the 2nd edition. Please continue to pass on your observations, comments, additions & corrections. Here are links... 1. https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20197.pdf Corrections cannot be made directly into the document so please send in another document, electronic, email, or paper. Send paper docs to me at 1412 Blue Flag Court, Northfield, MN. 55057 2. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y0IgEUDJLGzZJp_DVoZ0ZwE4hiLfZ7inTTTmD9n… The Addendum is for adding information from 1989-2017. You can comment/add directly into this document. We look forward to hearing from you! Beret and David _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Global Buzz April 2017
by ICA International via OE 06 Apr '17

06 Apr '17

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website Please click the link below for the February 2017 issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: April 2017 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-17/2017-04-01.php ICAI Communications

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3/06/17: Spong Revisited (last article): Suspicions about Judas, Part II
by Ellie Stock via OE 06 Apr '17

06 Apr '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Five Beliefs I Continue to Hold About the Church By Eric Alexander In the last article I talked about some of the things I still believe about Jesus, and in this post I want to talk about some of the things that I still believe about the Church. By “Church” I am referring to the institutions, buildings, denominations, and organizations. I am not referring amorphously to the people of Jesus, or body of Christ, as the Church here. I am also not referring to all churches, but rather the majority of them. But before getting into that, let me preface as I did last time in my article “Five beliefs I Continue to Hold About Jesus”, with my current synopsis of the Church. Five-Hundred years ago Martin Luther hammered his 95 thesis to the door of the Church, formally challenging their teachings and authority. At that time he was representing an upswelling of integrity and free thought of the people. Unfortunately though, whether he actually said this or not, his most famous quote went down in history as “here I stand.” In other words, he took a step, and then committed before God and country to stand firm again. Now, five hundred years later most of the Church still stands in that place that he stood. He was able to help pivot humanity to think more individually, and to read the Bible directly, which was monumental for the time. But it opened a whole new can of worms, which is interesting because his tribunal for heresy was held in a German town called Worms. Luther’s step forward could have been what the world needed. It could have been that magnificent shift of enlightenment that the Roman Catholic Church institution had been squelching for a thousand years or so, in order to retain power over the people. But whilst it resulted in more freedom from a corrupt institution, it led to further theological folly. To make matters worse, the institution then came back around and found a way to productize that new folly, and that’s what we’re dealing with today. I think it’s time we say loud and clear that the church of yesteryear, which many who are over age 40 identify with, is not connecting with the younger generations, and it is pushing many of the elders away too. The young are not buying it, and their parent’s generations are not pushing their kids and grandkids to adopt their path, as was once the standard generational cycle that church leaders could take to the bank. The Church, in my opinion, could be a lovely thing though. It could be, and sometimes is, an essential and critical part of the social and spiritual fabric within a community. But that is the very last thing that most churches have on their “what we believe” mission statements. In an individually empowered generation, where people have infinite expectation of integrity, the majority of churches aren’t going to sell a new generation of awakened souls a continuous path of cognitive dissonance that demands intentional ignorance. In today’s age of Google and free thought, very few newcomers are going to believe that Jesus was born of a literal virgin. Besides that, scholars have identified the source of that error, and neither Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, or John ever mentioned it in the first place. However, far too many churches still make that belief an intellectual pre-condition to take part in everything they do. If you want to go serve soup at the local homeless kitchen with them, that’s great, you’d just better agree to believe an untenable list of doctrines if you want to be fully accepted by the tribe. Also in today’s age of knowledge and logic, free thinkers aren’t going to believe that God sent a uniquely incarnate form of God’s self to earth in order to die as a sacrifice to God’s self so we could be saved from God’s self. And furthermore, hardly anyone is going to continue to believe that it was due to an original sin in the Garden of Eden caused by a talking snake. Yet, again, that is the pre-supposition that many churches lead with. It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the Church is shrinking. Sure, some churches are now conceding to the Garden of Eden story being figurative, but they continue to stick with it as an inerrant and infallible story about God’s purpose and character. That is still a major fail in my opinion. Most churches also use outdated 1700 year old creeds as the basis for their liturgy. They talk about a bunch of criteria that Jesus never once mentioned, and they ignore the actual teachings and examples of his ministry and mission when they recite the tenets of their faith. If the Church is going to remain relevant into the future, it would be well served to take heed of the following five beliefs that I and many others continue to hold: 1) Many people are still looking for a place to connect spiritually within their community. 2) Many of us still want to engage ourselves and our families in meaningful mission and service. 3) Many of us still want to collectively learn about the art and practices of love, peace, joy, forgiveness, and generosity in the world. 4) Many of us value inclusivity and mystery over rigid sets of prescribed beliefs and biases. 5) Many of us still love the example that Jesus set, but will no longer accept the Bible as literal, inerrant, infallible, or universally authoritative. (More on this in the next installment) If you ask me, that is a large, caring, and interesting group of people to pivot toward, and more than enough to “save” the Church if we wanted to. Current Church leaders may not have the fortitude or courage to make this shift, so it may be up to those of us on the fringes to guide it as it falls. Or to simply build the new thing. Now, if you’re over 40 and you are reading what I am saying with disagreement or frustration, I would be willing to give more leeway, because odds are that you were indoctrinated as a young person by every authority figure you ever knew. Particularly your parents, teachers, politicians, and pastors. That stuff got deep in many of our melons and is extremely hard to shake, no matter what evidence comes out to the contrary. But it’s important for even you to realize what is happening, and to also recognize that indoctrination based growth won’t continue on nearly the scale that it used to. Most of today’s youth aren’t taught to learn through indoctrination, but rather by practicing the scientific method. So they are not going to sign up so easily to faith based claims which contradict reality (and oftentimes even contradict common sense). Sure, most people reading this have gained enough wisdom to know not to limit ourselves in a box of our current scientific understandings. More is always possible, and any enlightened person recognizes that. But to limit oneself in a box of complete contradiction to reality is not going to be the future either. So there it is. My words on behalf of myself and millions of others who want a Church, but not the current Church in its majority form. And on behalf of those who are growing weary of swimming against the mainstream institution. There are many people who think like me, and a number of churches who are finding a new beneficial path that may represent the future. We love the potential of the Church, and we want to see a Church-like element remain for future generations to enjoy and find peace and hope in. I still believe in the idea of an institution based on love, inclusivity, and service. May it be so. ___ If you missed my last article on what I still believe about Jesus be sure to check that out in the archives or by clicking the link. In the next installment I will round out this opening series with what I still believe about the Bible. Then we will dive even deeper. Thank you for reading, and as always I look forward to your comments. I noticed last time that many of you wrote me directly through a variety of channels, which became difficult to keep up with. And while I love public comments below so others can follow and learn, if you would prefer to contact me directly, you can do so at EricAlexanderCE(a)gmail.com . Until next time, peace. ~ Eric Alexander Read the essay online here. About the Author Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and activist. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and authored the popular children’s emotional health book Teaching Kids Life IS Good. Question & Answer Jeff from Lexington, N.C. writes: Question: With Easter almost here, I can't help but wondering what the point of Jesus dying on the cross was if it wasn't to save us from our sins? Answer: By Mark Sandlin ... Dear Jeff, To me, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – humbly riding into town, bouncing around on the back of a previously unridden ass as people gathered to greet him singing and shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” signals that Easter is going to be a story about confronting The Powers That Be. You see, in stark contrast, the actual ruler of the region, Prefect Pontius Pilate, basically the Governor would have made quite a different entrance. As Rome’s official authority, he would have paraded through the front of the city's gates on a mighty steed while surrounded by Roman soldiers. The Easter story happens as folks are gathering in Jerusalem to observe Passover – the annual commemoration of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt to escape a repressive, enslaving government. So, it happens in a setting that recalls the power of the people when it comes to escaping tyrannical and oppressive regimes. As you might imagine, Rome, actually BEING a repressive government, would have been somewhat weary of this kind of celebration. The Romans certainly didn't want the Hebrew people to get any ideas about another Exodus, this time from the occupying Roman government. And Jesus, after his humble entrance into Jerusalem, and seemingly out of character, enters into the Temple courtyard and strikes at the heart of a main source of the religious institute's funding. The moneychangers and traders who had set up shop in the Temple used their monopoly to take advantage of the mostly-poor travelers who came to the city to pay their taxes. Since the religious institute and the government were closely tied, Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple was the beginning of the end. He'd gone from an annoying sideshow (along with all the other supernaturally endowed teachers of his time) to being a viable threat to the state. >From that point on, the storyline gives us a reality check as to how far the Powers were willing to go to protect their status and wealth. It's a story that continues to echo in the world today. We can look to the life story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and remember how far American politicians and some of the people are willing to go to obstruct voting and civil rights. Confronting The Powers That Be can be dangerous work. It should not be taken lightly. It can be unsettling, unnerving, and downright frightening. The Powers That Be will not go down gently – they never do. They will use every tool available to them to maintain their status, wealth, and control. In confronting them, we risk our good name, our freedom, and even our lives. Or as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The Easter story is a not-so-gentle reminder of how much is required to resist powerful and oppressive forces, and it is a reminder of how far The Powers That Be will go to protect their power. The Good News is that Easter's conclusion is a reminder that it’s also the story of how far love will go for the sake of divine justice. In the end, Easter is a story of confronting those who would use their power to oppress others and the real risks that go along with it. Ultimately, though, Easter is the story of the resurrecting power of love and hope. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read and Share Online Here About the Author Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, The God Article, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press' Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on "The Huffington Post," "Sojourners," "Time," "Church World Services," and even the "Richard Dawkins Foundation." He's been featured on PBS's "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" and NPR's "The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin ____________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited My Suspicions about the Historicity of Judas Iscariot, Part II As the season of Easter dawns in the Christian world, two figures take center stage in the liturgical drama. One is Jesus of Nazareth, who came to be called by believers, “the light of the world.” The other is Judas, called Iscariot, portrayed as the incarnation of darkness and villainy. When the story of the final events in Jesus’ life are read in worship services during this holy season, the latent hostility toward those thought to be responsible for his death is once again raised to consciousness. John’s Gospel is quite overt in stating this theme: “He came to his own home and his own people received him not.” It was the beginning of a deep and killing anti-Semitism. Those who “received him not” were the Jews. More particularly they were two identifiable groups of Jews who were targeted in this rejection theme. First, there was the ruling class of the orthodox Jews, the Temple party, dominated by the tradition bearing Sadducees. Second, there were the Jewish zealots, the guerrilla fighters, who wanted to attack the hated Gentile Romans whenever the opportunity arose. The character Judas, who is portrayed in the Gospel narratives as the quintessential Jew, is in some sense a composite of both groups. It was appropriate, therefore, that his name would identify him with Judah, the name of the Jewish nation. Judas is nothing but the Greek spelling of Judah. Last week in this column, I shared my suspicions that Judas Iscariot was a literary figure not a person of history. I suggested that he was created in the second generations of Christians as the means for shifting the blame for the death of Jesus away from the Romans, who were so obviously responsible for his execution, to the Jews, who have borne the guilt of the crucifixion throughout history. I cited evidence from Paul and the Q document that the idea that one of the Twelve was the traitor was simply not present in the earliest Christian writings. This idea enters the Tradition first in Mark, which is dated somewhere between 70-75 C.E. It is then repeated and developed in all the subsequent Gospels. If my suggestion is to have credibility, a motive powerful enough to account for such a creation must be discovered. Then I would need not only to show but also to document the sources that the creators of the Judas tradition used to build their literary character. Those two things will be the focus of this column. The earliest Christians were all Jews. That single fact escapes the notice of many Christians. These Jews saw in Jesus the same God that their ancestors believed they had seen in the Jewish heroes of their past like Moses and Elijah. They interpreted Jesus, therefore, by wrapping stories about previous Jewish heroes around Jesus. I documented these connections at great length in a book entitled Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes. After the earthly life of Jesus came to an end, his disciples, who first called themselves “The followers of the Way,” began to incorporate him into the ongoing faith story of the Jews. The story of the Transfiguration where Jesus appears on top of a mountain with Moses and Elijah is typical of this process. There is always tension in a religious community when new ideas challenge old assumptions. So it was that these revisionist ideas, held by the disciples of Jesus, disturbed the traditional Orthodox patterns of the Synagogue. When Paul began to incorporate Gentiles into the Christian Movement, the tensions increased. Yet, despite this provocation both groups somehow managed to stay together in the Synagogue until late in the first century. It was a classic demonstration of the perennial religious tension between those who see themselves as the conservative, tradition bearers and those who bring the liberal challenge to the tradition in the name of a changing world. During this same time, the tensions between the Orthodox Jews and the Roman Empire were also deep and constant. The Jewish guerrilla movement, designed to harass those who were the conquerors of the Jewish State, was a factor in Jewish life as early as the time of Jesus. This movement was located primarily in Galilee. The fact that one of Jesus’ disciples was called Simon the Zealot may indicate that these disciples had a deeper connection with the guerrilla movement than we have yet acknowledged, since the guerillas were widely known as “the Zealots.” In 66 C.E. this smoldering and underlying tension escalated into armed conflict in Galilee. The Roman forces moved to quell this rebellion, but the mountainous terrain in Galilee gave those the Jews called “Freedom Fighters” a natural advantage. Rome finally decided that the only way to destroy those whom they called “Terrorists” was to strike at the Jewish heart and so the Imperial Army moved against Jerusalem and besieged the city. In 70 C.E. Jerusalem fell and the rag tag Jewish defenders fled to Masada and held out for three more years until they were finally defeated. With neither food nor weapons at their disposal, the Jewish soldiers, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, ended the war by a massive act of suicide. The trauma of Jerusalem’s fall, however, was devastating to the members of the Orthodox party. In that cataclysmic event they lost their nation, their holy city, their Temple and the last vestiges of their religious freedom. The Romans had little patience with these defeated Jewish fighters specifically, and with the Jews in general. Powerful nations do not tolerate terrorists easily. For the Jews it was a crisis of survival itself so we see these Orthodox Jews doing what radically insecure religious people always do. They organized their lives totally around the quest for survival. One part of this survival was the fanatical frenzy with which they built a rigid defense system around their one remaining religious symbol, their sacred scriptures, centered in the Torah, which they called ‘the books of Moses.’ They are the first five books of the Old Testament. These Jews thus began to make excessive, fundamentalist claims for the Torah. “It is the inerrant word of God,” they said. “It admits to no relativity. It is complete. Nothing else is necessary. In the Torah we have the ultimate truth.” This defensiveness, however, flew in the face of the disciples of Jesus who were also part of the Jewish world. As revisionist Jews they were saying, “God has acted in a new way in Jesus. Our traditions must be open enough to incorporate him and what he has taught us about God.” The two positions were mutually antithetical. All Jews were now at risk since Rome did not distinguish between the Orthodox Jews and the Revisionists. It did not help the tensions within Judaism that the Jews who were the disciples of Jesus began to say that the destruction of Jerusalem had been brought upon their nation by the rigidity of the Orthodox party. “That is what religious zealotry gets you,” they said. “It blinds you to what God is doing today. It distorts your view of reality.” The Jews who followed Jesus did not want to be linked inside the minds of the Roman authorities with the Orthodox believers. They wanted to show that they were different, more pliable, more willing to cooperate with Rome. “Look at the Christ whom we follow,” they would say. “and you will see that we too, like the Romans, have been victimized by these same rigid Jews.” So it was, that as the story of Jesus evolved, Pilate and the Roman authorities were increasingly whitewashed, while the Jews were increasingly vilified. The Roman procurator was portrayed as saying of Jesus, “I find no fault in this man,” and making plans to release him. The Jewish crowd was portrayed as shouting, “Crucify him, crucify him,” Pilate was reported to have washed his hands publicly and to have said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just man.” The Jewish crowd was quoted as having said, “His blood be upon us and upon our children,” So the shift was made. The Romans were exonerated. The Jews were blamed. The Jewish disciples of Jesus and the Roman authorities had a common enemy in the Orthodox Jews. I believe that the story of Judas grew out of this tension. The ultimate traitor was made to bear the name of the Jewish nation, His motive was said to be money. He symbolized the nation to whom Jesus had come and, “they received him not. Once the fantasy figure of Judas emerged, its creators needed content to flesh out his character and identity. Where did they find the material with which to build this portrait? Every detail ascribed to the story of Judas in the Gospels can be found in other stories of betrayal in the Hebrew Scriptures. All one has to do is look them up. In the book of Genesis another group of twelve is portrayed as handing over one of their own to his enemies. This is the narrative in which Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery. It is striking that the brother who suggested that they get money for their treachery is named Judah. In the David cycle of stories, Ahithophel, a member of David’s inner circle of advisors, betrayed the king, who was called “the Lord’s Anointed.” This betrayal was thus by one “who broke bread with him” at the king’s table. This passage from the Jewish Scriptures is quoted in the Gospel of John, to demonstrate that Jesus’ words, about being betrayed by one who ate at his table, actually fulfilled a prophecy. The passage quoted, however, was about Ahithophel. When this act of betrayal was discovered, Ahithophel went out and hanged himself just as Matthew later was to say that Judas did. The story of the kiss of the traitor is also found in the Bible. When King Solomon replaced David on the throne of the Jewish nation, he replaced his father’s military commander, Joab, with Amasa, one of his own loyalists. Joab, violently angry about his dismissal, searches out Amasa under the guise of congratulating him. When he finds Amasa, he takes Amasa’s beard to draw his face close to him so that he can give him the kiss of friendship. But with his other hand he disembowels Amasa with a dagger. In the last half of the book of Zechariah (9-14), the shepherd king of Israel is betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. The money is later thrown back into the Temple. The people to whom he is betrayed are those who buy and sell animals in the Temple. Every detail of the Judas story is an echo from other betrayal stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. Is that just a coincidence or is it additional evidence that Judas was a literary creation born in a polemic designed to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus and to exonerate the Romans. It is certainly a strong possibility. My suspicions about the historicity of Judas are not without significant foundation. Holy Week and Easter have historically been the time when anti-Semitism has been unwittingly encouraged in Christian history. By raising to consciousness the sources of this anti-Semitism perhaps we can help it to die. Those of us who claim to follow the Jewish Jesus as his disciples, need to hasten the day when hostility toward the Jews, who gave us this Lord, is forever removed from our faith tradition. ~ John Shelby Spong (Originally Published April 9, 2003) Announcements The Movies and Meaning Festival Movies & Meaning was founded in 2015 as a gathering of people around art and activism—those who desire to heal our personal and cultural wounds as a diverse community, laugh and cry around the “campfire experience” of great movies, and gain tools for constructive, respectful, and thoughtful dialogue across boundaries of religion, class, race, and age. Read On ... Embrace Festival May 4 - 6th in Portland, OR Click here for more information/registration .

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