June 2017 - 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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Lunch today
by James Wiegel via OE 09 Jul '17

09 Jul '17

Judy and I had lunch today with Joe and Marilyn Crocker at their place in Wells, ME. Met the Crocker's dog, and sort of spontaneously burst into song . . . Goodby my Coney Island Baby, Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, I Don't Know Why, More, . . . Grand finale was the Poverty Song (Come Walk with Francis . . Had to dig out the words for that one. .). Any other strange outbursts happening lately?? Jim Wiegel 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com This Is Just To Say BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

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Salmon: A reflection on your reflection
by William Salmon via OE 09 Jul '17

09 Jul '17

Bill and OE Colleagues-- Perhaps you will remember this. During one of the Summer programs, a special team was created to be the Disturber-of-the-Sleepy. Sometime during the hours of a break-out session, a person with a Chinese Gong would enter your room, smash the gong and leave; or a quartet would march through your space singing one of our great tunes, bow and leave. The purpose was to break the ordinary into the extra-ordinary. In consulting with school systems and/or individual schools and others, I've suggested doing something similar. I asked a school colleague about the topic of a paper l wanted to write. He said, "Tell them about being thirsty." I asked him to explain, and he went on, "You can lead a horse to water but you can make him or her drink it unless the horse is thirsty for what you are offering it." He sent me out into my high school to observe the classes where students had moved from complacency into engagement. It was easy to find: art, metals, woods, band, choir, drama, home ec. The students wanted to be there and when they were engaged in some project, they did not want to be bothered and were disappointed when the class ended. Much of the problem in our high schools is in the teacher's teaching. I have information to share on why this is the case and some suggestions on what are the alternatives--should anybody be interested. Inner Peace, Bill Salmon ----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Schlesinger via OE To: 'John Epps' ; 'Order Ecumenical Community' Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 6:33 PM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Earthrise Reflection Ah, those cerebral Presbyterians! From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of John Epps via OE Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 4:49 PM To: Tracy Longacre via OE Subject: [Oe List ...] Earthrise Reflection To continue our Earthrise contributions around one's birthday, I offer the following: I’ve never heard anything like it. The ordinary mode of beginning the Sunday worship service at Montview Presbyterian Church is the sound of chimes after which the congregation is invited to quietly make the transition from getting there to being there. This Sunday, being Easter, the sanctuary was overflowing with people enthusiastically greeting each other with churchy cordiality and requests from the front to move closer together in the pews to accommodate more people. I was sitting quietly waiting for the chimes, hoping to be able to hear them over the din, and looking forward to a few moments of silence to absorb the beauty of the surroundings. Suddenly from the choir loft came a deafening crash of cymbals followed by a brass and organ fanfare that filled the gothic architecture with ear-splitting wonder that lasted a full 5 minutes. After the final grand chord, the congregation was speechless. The impact was powerful and profound, setting the tone for something grand about to happen. For me, if nothing else occurred during the service, the Easter wonder had happened. The piece was Grand Choeur Dialogue by Eugene Gigout; you can find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rufxt80iVA0 But that was only the first musical treat. The brass and organ and choir continued their gift of awe-producing sounds during the hymns, anthem, and offertory anthem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZtIRp3Vglw was the anthem. By the time we left, I was done in, having experienced something of a resurrection myself.. Since then, I’ve been wrestling with the thought that such grandeur was not at all like the lifestyle portrayed in the New Testament. Though it clearly portrays the significance of the Easter event for Christians, the music and setting seemed more appropriate to royalty than to us. Recent Public TV shows featuring Henry VIII depict a setting in which this type of music would have been right at home. Maybe the point is that awe happens when you least expect it, when surprises break through that are not of our doing. If, as I have contended elsewhere, surprises are where we are confronted by Mystery, that certainly happened at the Denver Montview Presbyterian Church on Easter Sunday, 2017. Virus-free. www.avg.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] Lunch today
by Rod Rippel via OE 02 Jul '17

02 Jul '17

Thanks for “This Old Song!.” In what hymnal did you find it? Song just breaks out! From: Nancy Lanphear via OE Sent: Friday, June 30, 2017 7:02 AM To: Stuart Hampton ; Order Ecumenical Community Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Lunch today Last week we gathered On Jun 30, 2017, at 6:24 AM, Stuart Hampton via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: My wife bought me a bunch of these bumper stickers for Christmas. "Warning: May start singing for no reason" This old song says it all in just the first two verses. "How Can I Keep From Singing?" My life goes on in endless song Above earth's lamentations, I hear the real, though far-off hymn That hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife I hear it's music ringing, It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing? On Friday, June 30, 2017 7:30 AM, James Wiegel via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Judy and I had lunch today with Joe and Marilyn Crocker at their place in Wells, ME. Met the Crocker's dog, and sort of spontaneously burst into song . . . Goodby my Coney Island Baby, Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, I Don't Know Why, More, . . . Grand finale was the Poverty Song (Come Walk with Francis . . Had to dig out the words for that one. .). Any other strange outbursts happening lately?? <IMG_8766.JPG> Jim Wiegel 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com This Is Just To Say BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net <IMG_8766.JPG> _______________________________________________ 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

4 3

The Order and Oaxtapec
by John Epps via OE 01 Jul '17

01 Jul '17

It has long been claimed that at the Oaxtapec gathering, the Order was called out of being. That assertion has long troubled me, and it seems time to clear the air. IMHO, the statement is both sociologically and theologically inaccurate. A more accurate formulation of what happened in Mexico was that we went from a structured to a dispersed form. Something was definitely dissolved at Oaxtapec, but it was not the Order, only a particular form of the Order. On the sociological side, there is still a lively “we” that once went under the name “Order Ecumenical.” This list-serve and the archives workshops represent some manifestations, but more significant are the personal collegial relationships that persist despite great demographic, cultural, and geographic differences. “We” continue to communicate and to celebrate the life milestones of each other. “We” continue to engage in the mission of catalyzing and caring for those who care – in multiple sectors and with far greater impact than a single organization could have managed. Some examples include the ToP Network, the IAF, ICA community development work in India, Nepal, Australia, and South America, and environmental preservation efforts in the USA. “We” have published a good number of books making insights available to a wide audience. Colleagues could fill out the list. Theologically, the Order is a historical dynamic that we’ve been privileged to participate in. It is not something we can disband, even if we wanted to. Just as Niebuhr described the Church as the “sensitive and responsive ones…” that takes many forms, so also is the Order composed of those awakened and catalytic ones who care for those who care. The notion that some of us could dissolve that dynamic confuses the form from the content (the baby from the bathwater to use a less abstract metaphor). I’ve come (reluctantly) to see that we were led to dissolve a particular structure so that the historical dynamic might continue in an enhanced fashion. Why does this matter? Is it simply a verbal difference having little to do with anything except the neurosis of an old theologian? It matters because thinking that there is no longer an Order prevents us from wrestling with pertinent questions: How can we remain in touch with the Profound Mystery? How can we continue to access our common insights? What rites and celebrations are appropriate to a dispersed body? How can we account to each other and support each other? How can we stay on the religious and secular edge? What (if any) forms are appropriate for the global and diverse participants in this historical dynamic? In a time when hatred and fear of differences is so rampant, what new experiments might make a difference? What might we learn from *Journey to the East*? Collegial comments, clarifications, corrections, and additions are most welcome. Thanks for reading this. John Epps

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"Journey Reflection" Blog Posts (June 2017)
by John C via OE 30 Jun '17

30 Jun '17

1 0

Re: [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec
by zbarley via OE 29 Jun '17

29 Jun '17

George Thanks so much for sharing your story. Where we went and who we continued to be are indeed as much a part of the Order as our times together. I can't imagine anyone who's life wasn't radically changed even if only by new methods of understanding and engagement in daily life. Zoe Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: George Holcombe via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: 06/24/2017 5:03 PM (GMT-05:00) To: ICA/OE List Serves <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net>, ICA/OE List Serves <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec As Lingo used to say everyone in the Order has their own story and take on it. I’ve appreciated the replies to Epps email and his thoughts. Mine is slightly different, though I can identify with much that has been said. We came to the Order from Louisiana. We had been working with Civil Rights, helped start a project in South Baton Rouge that was one of the first Poverty Programs to get funded and took OE courses and participated in the New Orleans cadre. The turning point came for us when our Bishop decided to assign us to a church in North Louisiana where part of the leadership were officers in the KKK and we didn’t exactly hit it off with them. In fact they had a file on us. We were focused on finding ways to empower people who were on the outside. So we went to Chicago, principly for the learning of and participation in 5th City. That did not immediately come true but eventually got to work in 5th City. Learned a lot from George West and so many others. Then assigned to Asia, Mowanjum, stateside in Uptown and then back to Asia for a number of projects. We departed from the order in 1980, intending to return, but we were broke and extended family needs were needing to be addressed. We pulled our daughter out of the student house upon learning of the abuse there. By the time we were able to return, the order had changed and appeared to us not to be doing anything more than we were at the time. I was not enthused by our turning away from the human development projects and the turn to the corporations. I had appreciated the work done on the LENS, the NRM and the Social Process and benefited from them all. In the meantime we were sought out by Bishop in the Philippines to help out in a new Seminary, village development and Peace with Justice work in the Philippines through the GBGM. We worked there for several years. We were asked by GBGM to coordinate Mission work in Asia and returned to the US in 2000. All this while our Order experience was at the base of what we did. Through all this I did learn that their was not a general acceptance of the hard work and time it took to train and assist a village into practicing the methods. Folks were more looking for their own success. And this even short changed some of our endeavors in the Order, but particularly so in the denomination. I do appreciate that where the methods got a footing good things happened and people grew much beyond what many thought possible. I remember being in Manila in the 1990’s when a knock came at the door and there stood a fellow from Taiwan. We didn’t at first make the connection but he was from Hai Ou. Someone had told him where we were. He had been a young man when ICA was there. He had learned from the Prawn project and had built a business establishing fish and prawn farms in Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. He wanted to thank us. Even to this day folks who were kids then find us on Facebook and email (how I don’t know). A couple of kids from Kwangyan Il are now US citizens living in Illinois. Some didn’t have good water or electricity back in the day and now they’re using computers. We have much to be thankful for and our colleagueship with what ever negatives you want to throw at it, has been sustaining and meaningful. I doubt that any of us can really account for the impact the Order has had on so many. The creative lives of those that peopled the Order continue to amaze me. George Holcombe geowanda1(a)me.com "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley On Jun 22, 2017, at 5:58 PM, Jean Long via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: jean long -John & Robyn - As in Neihbor's "church as the sensitive and responsive ones in each organization" I continue to look for and love the church as they search for a way to care for the growing suffering of neighbor and globe. I remember Joe saying when the time comes when there is no longer a common mission- go home. It is only our passion for an agreed upon way to alleviate human suffering that allows us to accept each others' warts and bruises and sons of bitchedness and work together day after day in profound forgiveness. That had begun to happen in Denver before the house was sold out from under us by some sons of bitchedness and we became the caring community in dispersion. The Order is alive and well in the persons of our ICA staff people. They hunger for the spirit dimension that they sense in us old Orderly people. And they go after it in our Archives. They found Brian Stanfield's Courage to Care with its end of chapter reflections and use it now as the spirit intro for many of their meetings with the 77Neighborhoods and the agency folks. Bless Tim Wegner, MIke Tippett, John Cock who maintain our structural connectedness - and our master ITs, Wendell Rafior, Doug Druckenmiller, Steve Eddiger - who lives in intentional community on the seventh floor - and all the rest of us working with the Global Archives who have sweat blood and underwritten the creation of the ICA Global Archives through which to make our methods available to those who may be searching for them as resources with which to deal with the suffering of these times. You will be getting info soon about the Week of October 8-13 when the Archives Sojourn week will host three tracks - 1. The Celebration of the Band of the 24; 2. The ongoing work and unveiling of the Archives Website; and 3. Tagging committee whose task it will be to, after identifying the communities we interact with, list the tags (labels) that they might use to find our documents. Right now we have 2000 scanned and ready to drop into the website, but without relevant tags after their document name on a spreadsheet in the database, they will probably never connect to "The New Religious Mode" - or as I see it "The New Mode of the Religious". We are having the joyous task of calling many of you who were in the projects to make you aware of this wonderful week of celebration and giving our methods to the future. Any questions, call me at 720-633-5008. Only costs, your time, air/carfair and board and room - $30/single, $45/double on the 8th floor - $10/day food. After rooms go, hotel rooms and friends/relatives guest rooms. The Order is, indeed, alive and well and doing our damdest to get our methods into the future. To you all I can say, Grace and Peace., Jean LongGlobal ArchivesChicago On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 2:07 AM, John & Robyn Hutchinson via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Dear John and Dharma and all,So well said. To this day we are part of the spirit movement – the order ecumenical – the crimson line - and always will be. We are grateful that this spirit dynamic could never be called out of being, and is still so alive today. When we speak about this with others, who are not part of this particular order – occasionally – they do understand what that means. There are so many people today, who are part of this wider spirit movement. All this is what energizes us to keep at ‘the mission’ until we can no more. Dharma, the question that JWM asked me (John) 50 years ago was: DO YOU LOVE THE CHURCH? (repeated 3 x) The question and answer is no different today (albeit the words are secular), and we see people asking and answering that question in so many practical secular ways, undergirded by spirit – the invisible/visible order we are a part of – standing between the no longer and the not yet. The new 40 year timeline has started again with profound new questions and responses to be created.Grace and Peace, John PS John and Dharma, this seems like the beginning of a good secular-religious article for Winds and Waves on medium.com!!!??? Robyn From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Dharmalingam Vinasithamby via OE Sent: Friday, 16 June 2017 10:14 AM To: Catherine Welch; John Epps; Order Ecumenical Community; Order Ecumenical Community Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec Thank you John for initiating this fabulous discussion that I have long wanted to have. Yes, no one can call this community out of being. It was not man-made but by spirit. Only the grave after the inevitable greying will put an end to us. The Order was an overwhelming part of my identity. It is still there but in the background. Now it is those whom I meet or work with face to face who are my community. As we say, change begins in the local. But there are moments when I am at a meeting - either at my workplace or with a community group - when I look at the people around the table and think "This is a community, a profound reality, but it is not aware of itself." We were not like that because we had learnt a discipline. We knew what was happening and had the language to discuss it. So that is where part of our non-ending mission is. I remember three things that JWM said. We had a 40-year task and when it was done, we would call ourselves out of being. Another was that when we met, we would expect the other to expect me to be plugging away at that one task that I had decided was important. And finally, he said when he died and went to heaven, he would stand outside waiting for us to show up. One question I have John and others who know. What do you remember that JWM said that you feel relates to the time after our 40-year task? regardsDharma On Friday, 16 June 2017, 2:35, Catherine Welch via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Thank you, John, for articulating the “life after Oaxtapec” so well. Catherine Welch From: John Epps via OE Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 3:57 PMTo: Order Ecumenical Community Subject: [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec It has long been claimed that at the Oaxtapec gathering, the Order was called out of being. That assertion has long troubled me, and it seems time to clear the air.IMHO, the statement is both sociologically and theologically inaccurate. A more accurate formulation of what happened in Mexico was that we went from a structured to a dispersed form. Something was definitely dissolved at Oaxtapec, but it was not the Order, only a particular form of the Order.On the sociological side, there is still a lively “we” that once went under the name “Order Ecumenical.” This list-serve and the archives workshops represent some manifestations, but more significant are the personal collegial relationships that persist despite great demographic, cultural, and geographic differences. “We” continue to communicate and to celebrate the life milestones of each other. “We” continue to engage in the mission of catalyzing and caring for those who care – in multiple sectors and with far greater impact than a single organization could have managed. Some examples include the ToP Network, the IAF, ICA community development work in India, Nepal, Australia, and South America, and environmental preservation efforts in the USA. “We” have published a good number of books making insights available to a wide audience. Colleagues could fill out the list. Theologically, the Order is a historical dynamic that we’ve been privileged to participate in. It is not something we can disband, even if we wanted to. Just as Niebuhr described the Church as the “sensitive and responsive ones…” that takes many forms, so also is the Order composed of those awakened and catalytic ones who care for those who care. The notion that some of us could dissolve that dynamic confuses the form from the content (the baby from the bathwater to use a less abstract metaphor). I’ve come (reluctantly) to see that we were led to dissolve a particular structure so that the historical dynamic might continue in an enhanced fashion. Why does this matter? Is it simply a verbal difference having little to do with anything except the neurosis of an old theologian? It matters because thinking that there is no longer an Order prevents us from wrestling with pertinent questions: How can we remain in touch with the Profound Mystery? How can we continue to access our common insights? What rites and celebrations are appropriate to a dispersed body? How can we account to each other and support each other? How can we stay on the religious and secular edge? What (if any) forms are appropriate for the global and diverse participants in this historical dynamic? In a time when hatred and fear of differences is so rampant, what new experiments might make a difference? What might we learn from Journey to the East?Collegial comments, clarifications, corrections, and additions are most welcome. Thanks for reading this.John Epps_______________________________________________ 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 Virus-free. www.avast.com _______________________________________________ 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

4 3

A Thought
by Margaret Aiseayew via OE 29 Jun '17

29 Jun '17

John asked this question: What rites and celebrations are appropriate to a dispersed body? I have to wonder if in honor of the one planet on which we live, we might should celebrate, each in our own way, the solstices and equinoxes. If you can think of nothing to ponder in your celebration, consider that the music of the hymn "For All the Saints" is titled Sine Nomine (Latin for without a name). It always enhances for me the mystery of my many colleagues around the world and all the change they foment.

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6/29/17, Wolsey/Spong: Making Friends with Silence; Spong Revisited: Terrible Texts, Pt. V
by Ellie Stock via OE 29 Jun '17

29 Jun '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Making Friends with Silence By Rev. Roger Wolsey Most of my attempts to connect and relate to God – involve silence. And most frequently, not much more than that. I sometimes wonder if there’s really much difference between seeking to connect to God – and not seeking to. Similar experience and results. That said, while similar, they’re not exactly the same. They’re very close, almost too close. So close that atheists (and agnostics, and struggling believers like myself) don’t tend to see meaningful difference. But, at times, I do feel the difference. I suspect many, most?, people have a similar experience if they’re being honest. And if we’re being honest, most all of us, including introverts, tend to not be a-okay with silence. Not with pure silence. It makes us aware of ourselves. Too aware. Of our struggles, of our hurts, our wounds, and how we tend to squirm in the midst of it. It’s especially hard in our go-go busy, be productive, need to do things, need for instant gratification, self-avoidant, God-averse culture. Two movies come to mind. Martin Scorsese’s new film adaptation of the Shusako Endo novel “Silence” and how it depicts God working patiently through the created order (including us and our human imposed chaos and traumas) to bring about Divine intentions – to woo love, hope, truth, forgiveness, mercy, justice, peace, serenity, and beauty into this broken world. God is at work in the subtle. We notice and appreciate the subtle by spending time in situations that are conducive to such noticing. There’s also an excellent Australian film, “Charlie’s Country” that’s currently on Netflix. It depicts the quiet life of an Aboriginal man and the tensions involved with his interface with, and oppression by, Western society. He and his people naturally spend much of their days just being – in silence. Yes, there are times of festivity, ritual, and dance, but mostly – just being – in silence. Westerners may look at such a life as a dismal existence – without merit or value. As a parasitic leech on society. And yet, we’d do well to see that this natural state of theirs can also be ours. That we work hard in order to be able to take vacations in order to strive for such states, but we rarely get there due to our habituated lifestyles. Our default state in life is not to simply be. We are more human doings than human Be-ings. In a way, dabbling in centering prayer or other contemplative practices, is harder, and more cruel, than to simply enter into a month or more long immersion experience. It’s like two teenagers or previously chaste newly-weds exploring sex together for the first few times. It takes time for the couple to learn to communicate, trust, and give themselves to each other in ways that are satisfying and enriching instead of feeling awkward, self-centered, or conflicted. Another analogy, it’s a lot easier, to get physically fit at a summer long Marine Corps Boot Camp, than to try to do it from the casual luxury of our usual routines – from our own homes in the midst of our normal lives. It’s challenging for me to have a daily yoga practice. So I don’t. I do it about 2-3 times per week – and always with others. I simply cannot do it by myself. I was at my yogic best however, when I did a 10 day stay at an ashram where I did yoga twice a day with others – as well as ate high quality vegetarian meals in community too. I can, however, sit in silence with God 10 minutes a day. I can do it an hour a day. I just tend not to. In reality, it’s more like 4 – 40 minute sessions per week on average. I can relate to everyone’s struggles with this. “Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich I take some solace in the proverbial story told about Mother Teresa. Reporter: “What do you say when you pray?” Mother Teresa: “Nothing, I just listen.” Reporter: “Well, then, what does God say to you when you pray?” Mother Teresa: “Nothing, He just listens… if you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it.” Sitting with God in silence feels absurd sometimes. Sometimes scary. Sometimes boring. Sometimes blessed. And occasionally – deeply moving. I do notice that the days that I partake in Centering Prayer, I tend to be slightly more aware of God’s presence with me through-out the rest of the day. I’m slightly more inclined to notice and help people in need. My “God radar” is more sensitive. I tend to be kinder. More patient with people. More present. That said, in truth, I notice God’s silence more than Her presence. I notice His silence more than him speaking to me. And that makes it hard. Frankly, it has made me angry. We’re supposed to feel something amazing – right?!? Such feelings of anger and frustration stem from expectations not being realized. As Antonio Banderas insightfully put it, “Expectation is the mother of all frustration.” It would seem that a fair bit of Judeo-Christian theology and culture has contributed some of these unrealistic expectations. And Yet … there are certain moments in my life when I’ve encountered the “expected” unexpectedly. Such experiences lead to a new layer of frustration as – on the one hand, we’d do well to shed expectations of profound encounter with the Divine; and then on the other hand… there are times when I feel Divine presence or Divine message. Sometimes both. Example: My call to ministry was a profoundly mystical, visceral experience where I sensed a physical and auditory presence – The Presence. Aside from that instance, the messages I receive are rarely more than a sense of warmth or a feeling of being loved, of being accepted, of grace, of non-judgment. And to be honest, it’s often hard to feel that’s enough. It’s perhaps a bit like the tiny amounts of “manna” that the ancient Hebrews depended upon as food during the Exodus. Sufficient, but not particularly satisfying. Yet, as the Rolling Stones put it, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.” Metaphorically, I think it may be a bit like Georgia O’Keefe and her relationship with “The Pedernal” – a certain mesa (flat-top mountain) in New Mexico that she loved to paint. She said “if she painted it enough times, it might become hers.” It’s hers. … I reckon I have something similar going on with God through centering prayer. If I intentionally “be still” and sit in God’s presence often enough, if I put myself in the situation where my mind drifts a thousand times in 30 minutes, and a thousand times I say my prayer word and “return to center,” if I do this enough times over enough years… I might get God. I may come to get that “a sense of warmth or a feeling of being loved, of being accepted, of grace, of non-judgment” – it isn’t a consolation prize, it isn’t second best, it’s not something to have to make do with, — it’s everything. What more could we really want? It’s easier as I age to be open to silence, to sit with stillness, to embrace the lack of lightening, to patiently wait for a still small voice, to be content with discontent, and make friends with the blessed terror and gift of holy silence. The Sound of Silence – can be “disturbing.” And that’s okay. Questions for reflection: What is your relationship with Silence? What’s it like? How does it feel? What does it cause you to do? If we share, maybe we’ll all hear, and maybe even experience, different slices of God. ~ Roger Wolsey About the Author Rev. Roger Wolsey is an ordained United Methodist pastor who directs the Wesley Foundation at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is author of Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity; The Kissing Fish Facebook page; Roger’s Blog on Patheos “The Holy Kiss” Read the essay online here. Question & Answer A Reader from the Internet, writes: Question: I am interested in your thoughts about Atheism, God, Religion as an Institution and Reincarnation. Answer: By Gretta Vosper Why does an atheist need God? I don't think an atheist does need God. My colleagues who identify as non-theists or post-theists or panentheists need the word ‘god’, but not the traditional understanding. They need the word because, as the late scholar Marcus Borg believed, if we lose our exclusive Christian language, we will lose Christianity. Clergy who continue to use a word that is understood by most people in church pews and beyond to mean “a supernatural, theistic being who can intervene in human affairs if it wants to” may well be working to preserve Christianity but are already, I believe, far outside what that is generally assumed to mean. Indeed, I think if we had been required to come up with a new word to describe what we believed each time our understandings evolved, we may have a stronger church today for our efforts and those who have left because they think we are still talking about that interventionist god we call God may not have needed to do so. I am willing to lose Christianity if it means saving the future for our children. Because of that, I am willing to sacrifice traditional language to transfer the ethos of my denomination – its ground-breaking justice work and its compassionate call to honour the dignity inherent in all living beings – to generations excluded by that language. It is the ethos of the progressive and liberal churches that defines us, not our language, and it is our ethos that most needs to be shared with the wider world and the world to come. What is your definition of God? The definition of god that got me through my theological education and the first several years of my ministry was more about what we create when we build relationships of respect and love with ourselves, others, and the world and less about the stereotypical god of the Bible. Much as Martin Buber wrote in his I, Thou, we have the opportunity to desecrate the relationships we build or to make them beautiful. When we make them beautiful, I believe we create a bond that offers us strength, courage, dignity and invites us to act compassionately in a broken and hurting world. That is what I once called god. But I no longer use the term as I found it terribly confusing for people. They usually thought I meant the Wikipedia definition of a supernatural being with interventionist capabilities in whom moral authority was grounded. I don't believe that and I believe that is a very dangerous premise. Why should religion be institutionalized? I wish it weren't, actually. I once argued that a spiritual experience, no matter what it was or how described, once transmitted becomes religion. We are, unfortunately, only able to share our experiences with others through our own interpretation of them. As soon as we interpret, the experience is no longer pure; it is confined by our limited perspective. Institutionalized religion is the hardening of those shared experiences. It is as though the ones who had the experience insist upon everyone having it and that they will be able to, or should be able to barring any failings on the recipient's part, to recreate the experience. Other than for the reason of our meagre attempts to share uplifting moments with one another, the only reason I can think religion needs to be institutionalized is to manage the power associated with claims to truth. And that, too, is a very dangerous premise. Do you believe in reincarnation? I do not believe in reincarnation but I am an agnostic when it comes to the nature of reality. I may be pleasantly, or horribly surprised! ~ Gretta Vosper About the Author Read and share online here The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best selling books include With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, and Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. ______________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Terrible Texts: The Attitude of the Bible Toward Women – Part V "The women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate as even the Law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church" (I Cor. 14:34-36) ......................."The head of the woman is her husband."(I Cor. 11:3) Much of my professional life as a priest and a bishop has been spent watching my church respond to the evil that has been done to women by quoting such terrible texts as these above. Somehow the fact that these words were found in the Bible gave them legitimacy, so to work for the full emancipation of women meant that you were opposing "the Word of God!" The result of this has been that both the Church and the Bible have been a force in encouraging a subhuman status for half of the human race. The time has surely come to oppose this vigorously and to refuse to listen to those who continue to defend the sins of sexism and patriarchy with appeals to Holy Scripture. "The sacred tradition of the Church" must no longer be identified with practices that issue in the abuse or diminution of women. Because of definitions imposed on women in antiquity, the pursuit of education, entry into the professions and the inability both to divorce and to prosecute abusive husbands has been denied to them. In the darkest moments of Christian history women have even had to endure periodic witch-hunts. These texts can no longer be spared because embarrassed Church leaders claim that the Bible has been misunderstood. If a tree produces evil fruit, we must stop pretending that the tree is not itself actually evil. I remember hearing Dr. Phyllis Trible, former Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Union Seminary in New York, argue that Adam was not actually a man until God took the woman out of him, so that the man and the woman were created together and, of course, equal. She defended this exegesis as "not a literal but a close reading of the text." I appreciate what this great lady was trying to do but find it to be an unhelpful attempt to defend the indefensible. One cannot escape the fact that the creation story has God seek to create a proper friend for Adam by making all of the animals. Only when the animals do not satisfy the male does God resort to plan B and create a human-like, but not fully human, creature out of the man. Nor can one expunge from this Bible the definition "helpmeet," imposed by this text on that woman. Second class status has plagued the woman from that moment to this. In the sacred Torah women are regarded as property even in that quintessential part of the law that we call the Ten Commandments. The last commandment enjoins the males of Israel, to whom the Torah is addressed, "Not to covet your neighbor's house nor his wife, nor his slave, nor his ox nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor's." It even lists the male neighbor's possessions in order of value: the house first and only then the wife, followed by the slave, ox, ass and other 'things.' The seventh commandment, designed to govern sexual behavior in a polygamous society, enjoined the males not to violate the woman who is the property, i.e., the wife of another male. To violate sexually an unmarried woman in this time was not adultery but the crime of diminishing her father's net worth. The unmarried woman was her father's property until some man paid the bride price and became her husband and new owner. If the woman was no longer a virgin, the bride price was lowered. Terrible texts need to be exposed and defeated and, when that is done, the claim that the book, in which these terrible texts are included, is somehow the "Word of God" needs to be countermanded in the name of truth, dignity and humanity. One has only to listen to the irrational claims that ecclesiastical males have made over the centuries in the attempt to keep their sexist prejudices intact, to know that anything less than a revolutionary approach to defeat this biblical claim will never work. I recall well the words of a former Episcopal Presiding Bishop, the Right Reverend John Maury Allin, speaking out of his emotional opposition to women becoming priests in the Episcopal Church in the mid seventies. "Women," he said, "can no more be priests than they can be fathers." It was a fascinating claim, a version of which is still offered by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox branches of the Christian Church to support an all-male priesthood. Perhaps that claim should be examined outside ecclesiastical circles for its irrationality. Women are certainly not equipped physiologically to be fathers. Women's bodies do not produce sperm nor possess the equipment necessary to inject that sperm into the fertile womb of a potential mother. But does it follow that this means that women cannot be priests? That leap in the argument makes the mind blink with astonishment. What does the male organ have to do with ordination to the priesthood? The traditional answer, given time after time through the centuries, has been that the ordained person must reflect the image of God, the assumption being that a woman's body is somehow deficient and cannot do that. People, from the Pope on down, have repeated that argument so frequently that we have become immune to its irrationality. What part of a male body is so essential that without it the image of God is not present? To expose this strange argument, I propose a simple test to illumine this hypothesis. To determine where the woman's is deficient, one needs only to stand a man and a woman in front of you. Then strip away from that man's body everything he has in common with the woman physiologically. Remove his hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, esophagus, vocal chords, heart, lungs, intestines, kidneys, pancreas, liver, stomach, hips, thighs, kneecaps, legs, ankles, heels and finally his toes. When everything the man has in common with the woman is removed, am I supposed to conclude that the image of God lies in the male organs that remain? That is what this strange argument implies. The claim being made by the Church's hierarchy is that one cannot be ordained if one does not possess the "godlike" organs of scrotum, testicles and penis! It surely becomes obvious that something strange is at work here, something beneath the level of consciousness, since this argument enters the world of the absurd. An all male priesthood is not a sacred tradition of the Church; it is an expression of the Church's sexist oppression. Ending it is not to counter the expressed will of God, ending it is to counter 2000 years of sexist violence against women. There is no more time for debate. Irrationality is never ended by rational debate. When John Paul II, defending sexism in the Catholic Church's all male priesthood said, "Jesus did not choose any women to be his disciples," the irrationality was once again present. It is an absurd argument. I want to reply, with all the respect that prejudiced rhetoric deserves, " I notice, Holy Father, that Jesus did not choose any Poles to be disciples either! Somehow that did not close the door to your distinguished career in the life of the Church's ordained! Jesus did not choose any Irish or Italians either. I have not noticed that the Roman Catholic priesthood has been limited to Jewish fishermen with an occasional tax collector thrown in!" This claim is incompetent on another level. Scholars today are not certain who Jesus' disciples actually were. Perhaps the Pope's advisors are not aware of this. The earliest list of the Twelve comes from Mark's Gospel, which was not written until the early years of the 8th decade or some forty years after the earthly life of Jesus had come to an end. Almost half of those on Mark's list, even in the text of this Gospel, carry no biographical detail other than their names. Matthew copies Mark's list with no changes. Luke's list of 12 disciples, however, differs. To complicate the picture even more, John never lists the names of the twelve disciples at any point. Key figures like Nathaniel, who appear to be at the center of the Jesus movement in John's Gospel, are never mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament as part of the Twelve. To destabilize this data even more, both John and Luke refer to a disciple of Jesus who is named Judas, but who is not Iscariot. This person is apparently unknown or at least he is not mentioned in either Matthew or Mark. So to argue about who Jesus picked to be his disciples is a shaky argument at best since even the Gospels do not appear to agree on who Jesus' disciples were. The number twelve might indeed be a literary rather than a literal number read back into the Jesus story by those who were intent on seeing the Christian Church as the new Israel thus making it necessary to have twelve disciples to be reminiscent of the twelve tribes of Israel. There is also evidence suggesting that female disciples were indeed part of the Jesus story. These women disciples are all but invisible until we come to the final episodes of crucifixion and resurrection. Why is that? One reason might be that, according to Mark, when Jesus was arrested all of his male disciples forsook him and fled. The women were the only ones left. But when we read the texts of each of the Synoptic Gospels closely, we discover that every writer records that these female disciples were with Jesus all the way from Galilee (see Mk. 15:41, Mt. 27:58 and Lk. 23:55). They were always part of the Jesus movement. The image of Jesus wandering around Galilee with twelve male disciples is an erroneous assumption based on a patriarchal prejudice. The accurate biblical picture is that Jesus roamed through Galilee supported by both a band of men and a band of women. Peter seems to be the leader of the male band because his name is normally written first. But the women also seem to have had a leader; whose name is Magdalene, for her name is also normally written first. She is a flesh and blood person at Jesus' side, during his life, a far more significant figure in the Jesus movement than the Virgin Mary ever was, as a brief look at a Bible Concordance will quickly reveal. She is also portrayed as the chief mourner at his tomb in his death. According to John's Gospel, she meets the test of apostleship in that she is said to be a witness of the Resurrection. The Church cannot continue to claim to be the body of Christ, while still denigrating fifty percent of the human race. Debilitating prejudices can no be sustained on the basis that change will destroy the "Unity of the Church." Unity built in the service of prejudice is a vice not a virtue. It is no longer acceptable to argue that the preservation of sexist prejudices is necessary to further ecumenical cooperation. Ecumenical cooperation in continued oppression cannot be squared with the definition of discipleship that proclaims, "By this shall people know that you are my disciples, that you love one another." Let no one suggest that love can ever be present where the Church's prevailing definitions of any human being cast him or her by nature into the role of a second-class citizen or an inferior Christian. The time for patience is over! ~ John Shelby Spong Originally posted January 28, 2004 Announcements A Mindful Life - eCourse July 3rd - July 28th Offered by Spirituality & Practice, join Donald Altman, a psychotherapist, award-winning author, former Buddhist monk, and international teacher and trainer to see how mindfulness can change your life for the better, one moment at a time. One wonderful aspect of mindfulness is how ideally suited it is for integration into daily living. In fact, you’d almost think this ancient 2,500 year-old spiritual practice had been especially created and developed as a healing antidote for those of us living in the future-oriented, fast-paced, and digitally distracted 21st century! READ ON...

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10 Colleagues response on June Order dialogue
by via OE 29 Jun '17

29 Jun '17

In Austin/Central Texas 10 EI/Order/ICA people meet monthly for dinner and study. We rotate meeting in our homes. If the event is at your house you provide the main course AND the study. Everyone else brings other food or drink. We value the structure. Someone called it our collegium or an Eclesiola. It is important to us that we gather for intentionality including but not limited to socializing. On Sunday evening I led our most recent study, a look at 10 letters written in June to the OE dialogue about relating to the Order. This was done as an art form conversation with this report as its D-decisional product. We are together by geography, because we all showed up in Austin and Central Texas. We were not necessarily Order friends, some of us did not know each other before this grouping but we have sustained a collegial meeting for near 30 years. The membership has changed as people moved here or away. 6 of us moved here and joined this group with an ongoing life. Now we are George and Wanda Holcombe, Dane and Glenda Atkinson, Diane and Terry McCabe, Deanna and Ken Henry, and Stuart and Mary Hampton. We are mindful of our location’s long history with the Spirit Movement as the home of the Faith and Life Community. We share a common legacy of relationships. Our times in the residential order varied from 4 years to 20+ years. We hear from Human Development project and Order folk including younger generations who are in college, living all over the world and find us on social media. Our individual work and our retirement missions are all different. We all use methods from the Order in work, community groups, families and our churches. We are sustained in our lives. The Order and our monthly gatherings are a nurturing part of this.

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