October 2019 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

ICA Global Archives to Fall 2019 Sojourn, Nov. 11-22, 2019
by Wendell Refior 14 Oct '19

14 Oct '19

Dear Colleague - ICA Global Archives Website Launch Sojourn - Chicago, IL November 11-22, 2019 Please come to join us for any of these dates for a variety of tasks! See the attachment. The next announcement will show the current teams developing each website collection content using digital copies of key ICA Global Archives documents. Grace and Peace, Lynda Cock Beret Griffith Paul Noah Doug Druckenmiller Wendell Refior and the entire ICA Global Archives Advisory Council -- Thanks until later. "To believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for <everyone> -- that is genius." - Emerson in "Self-Reliance" Wendell

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10/10/19, Progressing Spirit, Brandt: How much should we teach our children about the Bible?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 11 Oct '19

11 Oct '19

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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1677860961 #yiv1677860961templateBody .yiv1677860961mcnTextContent, #yiv1677860961 #yiv1677860961templateBody .yiv1677860961mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv1677860961 #yiv1677860961templateFooter .yiv1677860961mcnTextContent, #yiv1677860961 #yiv1677860961templateFooter .yiv1677860961mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Should we even bother with it at all ...? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | How much should we teach our children about the Bible? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Cindy Wang Brandt October 10, 2019 The Bible is one of the most dangerous texts in human history. Some of the most egregious acts in civilization find their justification in Scripture, from genocide to slavery to deadly homophobia. History proves that the Bible, read with nefarious hermeneutics, in the hands of powerful figures can cause catastrophe. Perhaps this is why many of us are nervous about how to approach the Bible with children and teens. The stakes feel high, like handing a loaded gun to a toddler. If you have any dose of humility about our limitations with engaging the text, you know this is a weighty task. How much should we teach our children about the Bible? What stories should we highlight? Avoid? When and what developmental stage do we introduce historical context? Genre? Translation? What hermeneutical lens do we give them? In what community? Should we even bother with it at all if the Bible isn’t a children’s book? I think a lot of us wrestle with these questions because of our own discomfort with the Holy Text. Fundamentalists have no problems teaching the Bible to their kids, they happily institute Bible memorization routines at home and endorse sword drills at Sunday School. When you believe the Bible is written by a puppeteering God moving the hands of biblical authors to write down literal facts, you don’t teach the Bible to children with nuance. But for those of us who desire a deeper conversation on the truth and authority of the Bible, we need clarity on our own relationship with it to help guide our children. When it comes to the Bible, just like in all other areas of faith and parenting, the best course of action isn’t to hand neat packages of certain answers to them, but to strive for as much honesty as we can. This builds trust and gives our children permission to respond with equal measure of authenticity, not only in their relationship to you but their own faith journey. The reality is that we all land on different points along a spectrum when it comes to the amount of meaning and authority and impact we ascribe to the Bible. The Bible as we know it today was birthed by a group of believers who agreed together to confer and submit the ultimate authority to a particular set of books, thereby canonizing it. To use a parenting metaphor, when a person adopts a child, how true is it that the child is now that person’s child? It is as true as the level of reverence one ascribes to the adoption laws of the land, as well as the amount of meaning they give to any rituals of adoption. The Bible may not contain literal facts of say, when the earth was formed or historical genealogies, but it is as true as it can be for a mother to claim a non-biological child as her own. As much as the Bible has the capacity to harm, it can also have the capacity to heal and to do good. The text is a “living word,” because the person and the community they are situated in, are living human beings who engage in the task of interpretation. One of the things I have learned from the rich traditions of liberation theologies is that the text can be used to set people free. Feminist readings of the Bible reveal the work of women invisibilized by the text, and empower women to “take back” the text for their own thriving. Childist readings do the same for children. What liberation theologies teach us is that when traditionally marginalized voices join in the task of interpreting Scripture, it opens the text up to revealing biases against oppressed people groups, it gives us permission to tell biblical stories in subversive ways, and it has the tremendous power to upset the status quo, resulting in better theology, more just societies, and a more fulfilling personal transformation. When we consider how to “teach” the Bible to children, the foremost question we should be asking is: are we inviting children, a people group whose personhood and human rights have only been recognized by the United Nations as recently as 1989, into the hermeneutical task? Are communities of faith willing to boldly give children as much power as they need when it comes to approaching the Bible? This means making ample space for children to interrogate the text, not only in curious inquisition about the details of the stories, but to pronounce judgments of it. It’s nothing short of gaslighting to tell a child they cannot say “the Bible is wrong,” should they point out some of the blatantly violent acts of biblical characters, including God. Including children in the hermeneutical task also means allowing them to re-tell traditional stories in ways that benefit them instead of the many ways the Bible brutalizes children. The near sacrifice of Isaac is a classic text of terror against children—that a father would treat his son the way Abraham treated Isaac is abusive and requires condemnation or a subversive re-telling. A dialogue with a ten-year-old with their mother went like this, according to an epigraph of the book, “The Children of Israel,” “Mom, asked the ten-year-old, “can anyone write a Bible?” “Hmmm…that’s an interesting question. Why do you ask?” “Because I have some important things to say about God, and I think I’d like to write a Bible.” “Well, I suppose you could write one. The real question would be, would other people want to read it?” “Why wouldn’t they want to read it? I know a lot about God and the way people ought to treat each other.” “Do you think your perspective on these things would be significantly different from that of the Bible we read in church?” “Mom, really! Just how many ten-year-olds do you think helped write that?” If we are wanting the Bible to be authoritative in any measure for our children, we better ensure they play an equal part in the task of interpretation. In fact, given children’s position of vulnerability in the world, we would do well to afford them even more access and power in order to tip a scale heavily weighted against them. Having established that we are willing to invite children into full engagement with the text, the question remains how we initiate that process. The three main factors to take into consideration is: - The child’s temperament, - The parents in establishment of the family’s values, - The various communities the child inhabits. A child’s temperament would indicate their particular desires for exploration of faith and the texts and traditions that shape the faith. This would help determine how much and how early you want to introduce the Bible to them. It would also help the parent discern whether to introduce images and stories that may be violent. I know many people, myself included, who were traumatized by images of the crucifixion because it was exposed to us at too tender of an age. I think children have remarkable resilience for gritty stories, and we certainly should strive to be as honest as possible about hard topics like death, sacrifice, and evil. But the way we introduce these topics require sensitivity to children’s anxieties, always offering tools to provide security and belonging in addition to tackling hard issues. Protect and guide our children into the world of Scripture, as you would in gentle leadership of their other experiences of life. How early and how often you want to incorporate Scripture into your family life depends on the parents’ relationship with the Bible. If it is part of your everyday routine or weekly/seasonal ritual, or drives your personal values as well as your hopes for your family’s values, then I imagine the Bible would very early on become part of the conversations you have with your child. As I referenced in the introduction, often we are fearful of exposing children to such a complicated text because of our own spiritual baggage of witnessing the damage it can inflict if not treated carefully. But fear is only one of many factors we consult in making parenting decisions. To keep our children from participating in something that means a lot to us feels unnatural and unnecessary. However, sharing faith and Scripture is simply that. It is offering the children an invitation to your priorities without any coercion that it needs to be theirs. It’s fair and just to maintain a posture of both inclusion and autonomy in our family relationships. Claim however much value you ascribe to the Bible and share it honestly with your child, always with the addendum that they can grow into their own relationship with it. Lastly, our children operate in multiple spheres of life, increasingly so as they grow and move outward beyond your family unit. And because the Bible is read in conjunction with the community we inhabit, it’s good to remember that our children will engage with the text from the influences of more than one community. This means we can teach our children one way of reading the Bible, with lots of permission to argue with the text as I suggest, and they may go out and see a billboard proof-texting a verse threatening people to hell, and that too becomes part of our children’s hermeneutical lens. They may hear a story told a certain way at the Baptist VBS, and hear a whole other interpretation from their atheist teacher from school. To me, that’s generally a good thing, because multiplicity of interpretations provide somewhat of a check and balance to one dogmatic way, the danger of a single story, as author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns. But it requires us to be aware and intentional about curating our children’s worlds. For example, I would be reticent to send my child to an interpretive community that does not allow them to question the Bible, or I would be sure to counter balance it with extra time and space to deconstruct that violation of their autonomy. Most importantly, I would want to give them the tools I have at my disposal to engage critically themselves as they begin to operate in the various arenas of their influence. Before I conclude this article, I’d be remiss to not address people/parents who have experienced personal trauma by Scripture. I think of LGBTQ folks who have been “clobbered” by a handful of verses to extensive harm. There are many ways (& many books!) to establish a loving relationship with your children and open them up to a world of critical thinking and engagement with the world, you certainly do not need to pick up the instrument of your trauma. I hope that one day, according to your healing timeline, you’ll be able to share even this painful story of your encounter with Scripture with your children so they may know of the dark ways Scripture is wielded for harm, as well as appreciating the many ways you are breaking the cycle of your past pain for their flourishing. Because if there is one thing I hope to impart to my own children about the Bible, it’s that nothing written on paper ever matters more than living human stories. ~ Cindy Wang Brandt Read online here About the Author Cindy Wang Brandt is a progressive Christian writer, but she has not always identified as progressive. In fact, she grew up conservative evangelical and was a career missionary for 5 and a half years. Cindy's experienced a radical faith shift and writes often about how that shapes who she is today. Along the way, she became a parent. Trying to navigate parenting when your faith has and is evolving has been complicated—but nobody ever said parenting is easy. However, she is convinced that one of the best ways we can make an impact in the world is to invest in the slow, unseen labor of cultivating values of hospitality, creativity, equality, social justice, and deep spirituality in the next generation. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Tom One of the reasons I wanted to reread his book was to see if I could get a different viewpoint on being a Christian within the “church.” I am still flummoxed as to why Bishop Spong is a Christian. He appears to be more of a humanist (non-capitalized). Why is the Bible sacred? It’s like a compendium of authors writing over a thousand years. And, yes, they all seem to be writing about a supernatural entity. But that’s because the only early writers tended to be either state actors or religious leaders. The other reason I read the book was that I started out as a Billy Graham=born-again Presbyterian, moved into atheism, then pantheism, and recently back as an atheist. I am still searching. No one has the answers. If someone could assist me in explaining rationally what makes Bishop Spong a Christian, I would be very grateful. A: By Rev. Gretta Vosper Dear Tom, I understand your confusion around Bishop Spong’s claim to be a Christian and hope that I can help you lay the quandary aside. You see, I am a Christian, too. But I’m also an atheist. And I have been an atheist for most of my life, though I didn’t claim the term until several years ago. Few, these days, would be comfortable hearing me identify as a Christian, and I don’t do it publicly very often. They believe there needs to be a defining line: you’re this or you’re that; you cannot be both. But Jack and I refuse that line. I grew up in the church, too, though my belief system developed far more loosely than either yours or Jack’s. My Christian upbringing was decidedly in the camp yours would have dismissed or maligned as unChristian or heretical. My Sunday School curriculum taught me that God was love and Jesus was this cool guy who taught us that we needed to love one another. As a teenager, I delighted in the psychedelic “Live Love” stickers and adorned my school binders with them. When I entered theological college as an adult, I was relieved when my studies provided the foundations over which my beliefs had already been floating: the Bible was a collection of stories which, as you’ve noted in your question, were written by many different people over millennia; God was a concept we needed to wrestle with as we formulated our own truths; and Jesus was a man who lived a long time ago and taught us some challenging and interesting things, but wasn’t perfect. None of us are. The stories of Christianity, indeed the stories of all religions, are woven and wrapped around human truths; it isn’t the other way ‘round, as many religions continue to proclaim. Awe and wonder, conviction and repentance, gratitude and appreciation, sorrow, lament, and need: all these are human truths and human realities. Over the course of our history, in every corner of the world, we’ve sought solace and encouragement, meaning and destiny. We’ve done it through the tools our religions have handed us, simply because they were there for that use. Jack and I know those tools inside and out; Jack much more intimately and comprehensively than I. We see the world through the templates of Christianity. We engage with it through the roots of our faith. While my congregation no longer celebrates Palm Sunday or Easter, we live the Biblical story that was woven of the truths and metaphors that reside at the heart of human existence: the dreams we have and the elation we know when we achieve them; the desolation of rejection and betrayal when they crash against the violence of reality; and the gift that it is, for each one of us, when we pick up the thread of someone else’s broken dream – an end to violence against women; the forgiveness of crippling national debt; the fight for the future of our planet – and carry it forward. These are basic themes of the human journey; Christianity got them right when they wove the story of persecution, passion, death, and resurrection. The stories bring us back to face and accept those truths in our own lives. Jack’s world is informed, as is mine, by those stories. For decades now, he has looked beneath them and worked to untangle the threads that have held them together. And at the end of his work, he has, every time, grasped the one thread that was worthy of you and me and humanity and lifted it up, offering it to us to hold and use as we will. He calls himself a Christian because he lives his life through the stories to which his life was and remains bound. I am so grateful for his efforts there and for the gift and permission he has given to me to do so as well. ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read and share online here About the Author 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. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together. Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the Bible, Part IV: The Story of the Yahwist Document Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong April 9, 2008 Thus far in this series on the origins of the Bible, my efforts have been directed toward how the Torah, which contains the oldest material found in the Bible, came into being. The Torah, also called “The Law” and “The Books of Moses,” is the Jewish name for the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Their creation in the world of literature did not happen the way many people today seem to think. No one, including Moses, simply sat down and started writing. In fact, the Torah was written over a period of about 500 years by a series of authors. Many of the stories told in this part of the Bible were a combination of myths, folk tales and political propaganda with only the slightest bit, if any, of actual historical memory. The opening biblical stories from Adam and Eve through the flood have absolutely no connection with history, despite the fact that some of the world’s more foolish people still try to locate the Noah’s ark on Mt Ararat. The first shred of history appears in the Abraham story and it is slight indeed. If a person named Abraham lived at all it would have been about 900 years or 45 generations prior to the writing of the Abraham story in the book of Genesis. Moses, the greatest hero in the Jewish story, lived about 300 years or 15 generations before the Moses narratives in were written in Exodus and as many as 700 years before the Moses stories that appear in Deuteronomy. This means that most of these biblical accounts are not history at all, at least not in any technical sense, but are rather interpretive folk lore. That needs to be said again and again. Even after constant repetition it is hard to make this truth heard, since most people have grown up in the power of 2000 years of literalization that continues to affect our reasoning today. In this column, I want to trace in more detail the beginning of what is called “The Yahwist Document” that scholars today designate as the oldest part of the Torah and thus the oldest part of the biblical story. Writing history, which is what the Torah purported to be, is an activity that normally starts only when a nation has become established and secure enough to begin to look at itself with some objectivity. While the Jews were fleeing Egypt, journeying through the wilderness, or invading and conquering the land of the Canaanites, there was little time or interest in transforming its experienced history into a written narrative. It is also important to note that in the ancient world, one who could write was first of all rare, a skill possessed in the tenth century BCE in the Middle East by less than one tenth of one percent of the entire population. Thus the one who wrote this first part of the Torah can be accurately presumed to have been high in either government or ecclesiastical circles. Writing also required considerable wealth, or at least access to wealth, since both parchment and ink were very expensive. We can assume, therefore, that both education and wealth were the marks of this original author of biblical material. Inevitably, such a person would reflect the attitudes and biases of the ruling classes which he represented. I use the word “he” not to be insensitive, but to recognize the fact that in this period of history the privileges of education and status had simply not yet been conferred upon women. The Yahwist Document got its name from the fact that this narrative referred to God by the name Yahweh (YHWH), the name it claimed had been revealed to Moses at the “burning bush.” Those letters in Hebrew were in some way identified with the verb “to be” and it was translated in the book of Exodus to mean, “I am that I am.” Since the verb “to be” is the foundation verb of any language, it seemed to be a fitting name for the deity who was regarded as the foundation of the tribe’s identity. When this strand of material is lifted out of the Torah and separated from the later strands, its historical setting becomes immediately visible. The Jewish nation has been established. Saul, the first king, a member of the tribe of Benjamin, had been unable to secure his throne. The narrative describes Saul as a melancholy, depressed man, who could not unite the various tribes of Israel. When all of Saul’s sons, save for a crippled child, were killed along with the King in a battle against the Philistines at Mt. Giboa, his throne was claimed by his military captain, a man named David. It is David who is the clear hero of this Yahwist writer. David was portrayed as chosen by God and anointed by the prophet Samuel to be king of the Jews at a very early age, indeed while still a shepherd boy keeping the flocks of his father Jesse. Heroic tales had obviously gathered around him in the memory of the people as tends to happen to a popular leader. It was said of the young David that he had killed a lion, a bear and finally that he had killed Goliath, a Philistine. When David moved to claim the throne for himself, the Yahwist writer suggests that he immediately instituted a series of political moves to solidify that claim and to win popular support. He ordered a national time for mourning the deaths of King Saul and his sons, punished anyone who appeared to take pleasure in Saul’s demise and made plans to conquer the city of the Jebusites, called Jerusalem, to make it his new capital. If he was going to unite the disparate tribes of Israel into a single political entity he needed a neutral city as a symbol of that new unity into which he intended to call the people of his nation. These tactics appeared to work. With his power at home firmly established, David began to expand his realm with a series of military victories. In the final test for a monarch, David completed a forty year reign and then was able to pass his throne on to his son Solomon, thus establishing the continuity of his nation in a continuing royal family. Among his last acts according to this narrative was to delegate to his son Solomon the task of building the Temple in Jerusalem, which would make that city not just the political, but also the spiritual capital of the Jewish people. With these three institutions now established, the throne of David, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon that was finished in the first decade of King Solomon’s rule, the time was right for someone to set this nation into the stream of history by telling their national story. That was the setting in which a court historian, perhaps a member of the royal family, perhaps a priest associated with the Temple, or perhaps someone who was both, was commissioned, probably by the king, to write the history of this Hebrew nation. This is how the first strand of that material, which would later be called “Sacred Scripture,” came into being. The date was some time around the year 950 BCE. Solomon had been on the throne for about a decade. The Jewish people had become wealthy because tribute money from David’s conquests was now flowing into Jerusalem. This part of the Middle East was at peace. The Temple, thought to be God’s earthly dwelling place, was complete and the life of the nation was widely believed to be resting safely in the arms of its two protectors, God and the King. This was the time to write the story of their origins. So the work of the Yahwist writer was begun. When his story was complete, the image of Israel as God’s chosen people was secure. It was buttressed by the claims made in this narrative. They were basically three: God had chosen the House of David, and thus the tribe of Judah, to rule over the chosen people, the will of God was expressed through the Temple in which God lived as a protective presence, and the high priest specifically and the Temple priesthood in general were alone designated to order the religious life of the nation as the sign of God’s continuous blessing. As soon as this narrative was complete, it began to be read as part of the liturgy of the people gathered in the Temple for worship, as is the destiny of all sacred scripture. In that process this narrative with its power claims achieved the status of being “God’s revealed truth.” This idea was certainly encouraged by the priesthood, who were well served as the aura of sanctity began to grow around these words. It also served the interests of the royal family since what came to be called “God’s Word” affirmed their divine right to rule. The role of Jerusalem in the national life of the Jews as a symbol of the people’s unity was established. In this manner the vested interests of each of Jerusalem’s power centers were solidified. The Jewish people, so recently a loose knit confederation ruled by local judges and worshiping at shrines located in Hebron, Beersheba and Bethel, now found unity in a new federation that was being imposed on them as nothing less than an expression of the will of God. In a world in which there was no division between Church and State (i.e. religion and politics), this first text to become part of the scriptures of the people was in fact a very political document. By tracing the Jewish story from creation to the call of Abraham, this narrative had gone from the universal beginning of human history to the dawn of their own national history. By relating the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph this narrative established, as both legitimate and moral, the Jewish claim to the land that they had in fact conquered. By incorporating the ancient shrines of Hebron, Beersheba and Bethel into their story they identified the religious traditions of the past with a new center in Jerusalem, which was their ultimate and grander successor. By telling the story of the noble history of the Jews prior to falling into slavery in Egypt, this narrative rebuilt their national reputation. It was political propaganda at its best, a powerful and effective attempt to define what it meant to be a Jew, a member of the “Chosen People.” What would happen, however, if and when the Jewish nation was ever to be divided in civil war? Such a rebellion would have to be against the scriptures as well as against the Temple and the King. That was destined to occur sometime after 920 and the death of Solomon. That was when the second strand of material that composes the Torah today came into being. To that story, I will turn when this series continues. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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10/03/19, Progressing Spirit: Vosper: No, This Isn’t for You; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 11 Oct '19

11 Oct '19

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!important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7336294376 #yiv7336294376templateBody .yiv7336294376mcnTextContent, #yiv7336294376 #yiv7336294376templateBody .yiv7336294376mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7336294376 #yiv7336294376templateFooter .yiv7336294376mcnTextContent, #yiv7336294376 #yiv7336294376templateFooter .yiv7336294376mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Okay, that was harsh. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | No, This Isn’t for You | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Gretta Vosper October 3, 2019 Okay, that was harsh. In my last column, I challenged you to wrestle with the change I believe is desperately needed as we come to accept the reality of our world as it will be during and beyond climate disaster. I didn’t talk specifically about that world, but the images we’re seeing on the nightly news or on our Facebook feeds keep me awake at night. They challenge me to challenge you, to consider how you might respond within whatever communities you find yourself. I’m going to assume you’re with me on this. If not, I’ll point you to the decision made by the Editorial team at The Guardian, one of the world’s most widely read and respected sources of news and opinion. The Editorial team decided that using the phrase “climate change” was no longer a realistic referent for the trauma already experienced by human communities and ecological systems as a result of our failure to address rising global temperatures. Things have already changed; we are now in the place of crisis and disaster. The Guardian’s Editorial team recognized that the dramatic changes to the world’s climate that we are now seeing are the greatest threat to our human community we have ever faced. So, I need to do what I can now, even as everything I once thought was “normal” is shifting and disappearing beneath my own feet, as well as the feet of my children and their children. I hope you see the urgency of this work, too. I wrote, in my last column, about communities of faith and the influence they have had on our civic engagement. Note the past tense of that sentence: “the influence they have had.” Because the liberal faith communities in Canada are on the brink of death[1], my article sought to warn my American readers of the things I believe led to the disappearing act of your northern neighbours’ church demographic. I warn you not only because you continue to see multiple generations in your worship gatherings, but because I believe you still have a chance to strengthen their impact within the communities they serve and beyond. Canadian churches are well past the seismic political and social impact they once had. American churches are not, though the evangelical right seems significantly more engaged than liberals. Perhaps it is time you caught the attention of the media, believe me, it can be done. Practicing … that thing we don’t do It is a sad thing to close the doors of a church. Hard as it is for the congregation’s members, however, the event has a far deeper, though often unseen and uncalculated, impact on the health of the community in which that congregation was practicing its increasingly irrelevant faith. As churches age and weaken, their focus necessarily turns toward survival and away from the world outside their doors. Not that they stop doing important missional and justice work, maybe offering a food bank, a clothing swap, or setting up a kids’ homework program. What churches stop doing as they shrink is serious evangelism. Say what? “Serious evangelism”? I’m writing for those who would station themselves on the progressive side of liberal and for whom evangelism is practically a dirty word, if it is heard at all within their congregations. As liberal Christians, we’ve long avoided such language, going so far as to deconstruct and apologize for the roots of our evangelical missions to foreign lands and the Indigenous peoples of our own. Take a breath. I’m not suggesting you reclaim the word. Remember, I’m the person who thinks that coming up with new definitions for old words has very likely been the death knell of liberal Christianity. So, don’t come up with a shiny new definition for evangelism that makes it feel right for you. Leave it with the old, stinging, and offensive meaning it already has. What I want you to embrace isn’t the word, it’s the spirit of what the evangelical movement was and remains about: a call to the radical transformation of one’s life. That is something we can get our heads around; we don’t need the word “evangelism” to do that. Assumptions: hidden in plain sight Still, I use the word “evangelism” because I want to ground what it is I am calling you to within the foundations of our faith tradition. The word “evangelism” helps make that link. If we think about it, Jesus spoke to a world not unlike the one we are struggling to understand now. The power differentials, the injustices imposed on the poor by the rich, the assumptions of privilege: all these things are part of our day to day lives just as they were part of the day to day realities against which he spoke. Most of us, like those in power in Jesus’ day, simply assume these assumptions without much critique: I live in a home I own; I drink my coffee strong, with cayenne, and whenever I want it; I could have a dog, or three if my husband would agree to it; he shops for groceries where and when he wants; I drive 20 minutes up the road so I can buy eggs from a no-kill farm; we can read whatever books we want, listen to music we enjoy, and vacation wherever we choose, all without restriction. We are not the downtrodden to whom Jesus’ message was electrifying. His message was one of radical transformation, something many of us no longer presume important in our lives. Perhaps we are so privileged that the cataclysmic message of Jesus to his time has become – y.a.w.n – boring. It takes effort to consider our privilege and its impact on the lives of others, at home or elsewhere in the world. It takes an even greater effort to consider the impact our privilege has on the lives of those not yet born but who will live in the world our privilege bequeaths them, along with all its “sham, drudgery, and broken dreams.”[2] We can choose to add to those broken dreams, or, with a little of our own dreaming, mitigate the damage our privilege currently promises. In my previous article, I challenged those of you who are not clergy to do the work of creating communities of resilience that do not rely upon – or even use – the language and liturgical traditions of your church heritage. Only through engagement that looks n.o.t.h.i.n.g like church will those who have never considered becoming church attendees have the privilege of experiencing what made you church converts: falling in love with being together. I wrote about why being together is so important to our social well-being, to the work we will have to do in the future, to our relationships, which are, above all, the most sacred of our human undertakings. No, don’t change anything; just be courageous I know, I was harsh. I told you that almost everything you loved about church would have to go. That’s not entirely true. You can keep everything exactly as it is in your own gathering, just don’t expect to add to your numbers because that isn’t where these people will find one another. You do not need to change anything about what you love about church; you do need to accept the fact that nothing you love about church will bring together those who have yet to find out what falling in love with being together means, does, and feels like. They have to mix and taste that magic elixir on their own terms. Dance it in their own space. Sing the songs they want to sing. Find what makes them cry in public and lets them feel good about doing so. You just have to get out of the way and let it happen. Or be courageous enough to test ideas, be wrong, test more, and so on until they – not you – find one another. In reality, this has little to do with you, personally, and everything to do with the vast amounts of space and money your church has at its disposal or can access and mobilize. Provide space; pay for secular facilitators; give them prime time access; let your leaders teach the beauty of community leadership; share your best gluten-free vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes; let secular music be played at the decibel level your sound system was built for. Love what emerges, even and especially if it isn’t what you expected; we love our children even when they become people we don’t really know. Give. Give. Give. Allow. Allow. Allow. For the sake of those who need to find one another. That they might fall in love and find, in the loving, radical transformation and the courage it takes to face the brave new world we have created. Afterword This was not the article I had intended to write. My brain took over my fingers and punched out a different article than the one I had considered. So, I am sharing, here, a few of the song that had emerged as I did my lead up to the actual writing. I meant to provide some resources about setting up a secular gathering at which those who do not want to go to church might find a place of resilience and growth – might fall in love with being together. I promise to do that in my next article. In the meantime, listen to some of these songs, all of which are available online and none of which have ever likely been sung or danced to in a church (except at West Hill). Play them loudly. Very loudly. And if you dance, well, all the better. If you cry, all the better still. Bon Jovi, Love’s the Only Rule Keala Settle, This Is Me Sarah Bareilles, Brave Andra Day, Rise Up U2, One Queen, We Are The Champions ~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read online here About the Author 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. [1] Evangelical churches are on the decline too but their mission is less focused on the state of the world so I don’t consider them allies in this work. [2] Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Joyce “I'm curious where the idea came from that if a person commits suicide that person does not go to heaven. I don't recall anything in the Bible saying that.” A: By Joran Slane Oppelt Dear Joyce, Thank you for your question. You won’t find this idea anywhere in the Bible. The earliest argument (using biblical justification) against suicide was in St. Augustine‘s fifth century book, The City of God. His reasoning came from the commandment, “thou shalt not kill.” Simply put, because this commandment didn’t mention the “neighbor“ he understood it to include the self. He also referenced the arguments made by Plato in the Phaedo (On the Soul) regarding Socrates’ suicide while awaiting execution. While Socrates made explicit arguments for the idea of an afterlife and the soul’s immortality, he expressed that suicide should be forbidden except under extreme circumstances because the body does not belong to man, but to the gods. The act itself is still debated as one of either cowardice or self-determination. Suicide is commonly seen as a result of disconnection, isolation and abandonment. It’s regarded as the last best option for those who feel they’ve run out of choices. It’s seen frequently in the hopeless and the outcast. It shocks families and communities because people rarely talk about having these thoughts. They carry them around, like burning embers, until a hole is created that cannot be filled. Suicide then turns that aching hole into an all-consuming force. It tears into an unsuspecting family or community as if a bomb has gone off, leaving only a smoking crater. It is a black hole that suddenly opens in the midst of a small village, swallowing everything in its path, including the light. There is no escaping the feeling of anger or betrayal (at God or loved ones) or the “selfishness” of the act. Family and community are left to caress the raw, frayed edges of that gaping hole. And, over time, the hole eventually gets smaller. But it never closes completely. The soul may live on after death, but a suicide will leave the surrounding souls darkened, colored and bruised (and a trail of generational pain in its wake). First and foremost, don’t let any priest or philosopher (including myself) decide for you what suicide is or isn’t – or whether your soul will live on when your body has taken its last breath. That is for you to determine, through the formation of your faith. And, Joyce, I say this last part as someone who every day gives thanks for the anonymous hotline staffer who somehow convinced my now teenage son to muster the courage to talk to his parents instead of ending his life at 11 years old. I am now blessed with a life where I can turn to see him, talk to him, and hold him (sometimes too tightly). That life was nearly a fantasy. If you are having thoughts of suicide, talk to someone. Literally anyone. Your story isn’t over. You are not yet out of choices. You are not alone. ~ Joran Slane Oppelt P.S. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1 (800) 273-8255. They also provide free anonymous chat at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. Read and share online here About the Author Joran Slane Oppelt is an international speaker, author, interfaith minister and award-winning producer and singer/songwriter. He is the owner and founder of the Metta Center of St. Petersburg and Integral Church – an interfaith and interspiritual organization in Tampa Bay. Joran is the author of Integral Church: A Handbook for New Spiritual Communities, Sentences, The Mountain and the Snow and co-author of Order of the Sacred Earth (with Matthew Fox) and Transform Your Life: Expert Advice, Practical Tools, and Personal Stories. He currently serves on the board of Creation Spirituality Communities and has spoken around the world about spirituality and the innovation of religion. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together. Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origin of the Bible, Part III: Breaking Open the Books of Moses The Torah Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong April 2, 2008 The Bible began to be written, relatively speaking, only a short time ago. When one considers the fact that the universe is some 13.7 billion years old and the birth of the planet Earth can be reliably dated between four and a half and five billion years ago, the beginning of Bible writing near 1000BC is very recent. Scientists now date the appearance of human life on this planet somewhere between two million and 100,000 years ago, depending on how one defines human life. The beginning of civilization is placed by anthropologists about 15,000 years ago. The person we call Abraham, who is regarded in the Bible as the founder of the Jewish nation, is generally dated about the year 1850BC. Yet the earliest strand of continuous material in the Bible appears to have been written in the 10th Century BC, making it a relatively late arrival on the scene. People have been trained by the Bible itself to think that the biblical story begins at the moment of creation. Bishop James Ussher of Ireland, using the Bible’s “inerrant words” and dates, asserted that creation actually occurred on 23rd October 4004BC. One of his later contemporaries, James Lightfoot, added the note that it was at 9am GMT! If we want to analyze the Bible, first we need to comprehend the fact that the earliest part of the Bible to be written was only about 3000 years ago, between 950 and 1000BCE. That fact alone immediately introduces a note of radical relativity into the biblical assertions of many people. Next comes the realization that if Abraham lived around 1850BC and the earliest written part of the Bible is after 1000BCE, then everything that we learn about Abraham in that story had to have been passed on orally for about 900 years or through as many as 45 generations before entering written form. That knowledge forces us to embrace the fact that this biblical story cannot be historically accurate, but has the character of folk tale and myth in which the facts of history are all but lost inside the developing tradition. Abraham might well not even have been a Jew. He was identified with the shrine at Hebron. Isaac, who is described as his son, was identified with the shrine at Beersheba and Jacob, called his grandson in the Bible, was identified with the shrine at Bethel. Their identifications with specific shrines opens up the possibility that these three patriarchs may originally have been unrelated Canaanite holy men, whose lives were later intertwined and interpreted as the founding generations of the Jewish people to provide justification for the Jewish invasion of this land that occurred around 1250BC. The purpose of these patriarchal tales in Genesis was to establish the Jewish claim that they were only taking over this land that God had promised to their ancestors hundreds of years earlier. As rational claims these things make no sense, but as propaganda they constituted then and still do now powerful influences in human history. Other facts about the biblical story are even more threatening to those who treat the Bible magically and who pretend that in its words both historic accuracy and literal truth have been captured. Moses, who is an even more pivotal person in Jewish history than Abraham, lived some 300 years before the earliest part of the Old Testament was written. This means that we must embrace the fact that everything attributed to Moses in the Bible, including the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Law at Sinai, are sacred traditions that passed through oral transmission for as many as 15 generations before achieving permanent status in a written form. How much did these crucial Moses stories grow in that oral period? Did the Red Sea come to replace the Sea of Reeds as the center of the splitting of the waters story? Did the discovery of the droppings of the Tamarisk tree in the wilderness, with its white flaky residue lying on the ground, give rise to the story of God raining heavenly bread called manna down on the hungry Hebrew people? Did an eruption of burning natural gas in that oil and gas rich desert give rise to the story of God’s call to Moses at a burning bush that was not consumed? What was the process through which the community’s code of laws, including the Ten Commandments, went before they settled into the familiar form that we find in Exodus? Is the number “ten” for the commandments more important than the content of the ten? Is the fact that the Bible contains a multiplicity of versions of the Ten Commandments an attempt to explain the biblical story that Moses broke the clay tablets containing the Ten Commandments when he saw that the people of Israel had forsaken the God who had brought them out of Egypt for a Golden Calf and that he, therefore, had to return to Sinai to get a second version? How much of the story of Exodus is history and how much of that narrative has been bent to conform to the developing liturgy of the Passover that was designed primarily to let the Jewish people observe the moment of their national birth liturgically? None of these were questions that could be raised until the idea that the Bible is not an eyewitness account of ancient history was both faced and accepted. With each new discovery the Bible began to be viewed as a quite human book that needs to be examined critically and not as the divinely-inspired literal word of God that was inerrant because it had been revealed by or even dictated by God on high. In the late 1800s, a group of scholars in Germany led by Professors K. H. Graf and Julius Wellhausen began to study rigorously the details of the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books, called the Torah or the Books of Moses, constitute the most sacred part of the Hebrew Scriptures and were traditionally required by the Jews to be read in their entirety on the Sabbaths of a single year in the synagogues of the Jewish world. These scholars began to apply to these texts the insights of literary criticism. To do this, they had to set aside the claims that these works constituted the “Word of God”, or that they possessed some magical relationship with truth. The results were salutary and more than anything else opened the doors to a new academic interest in the Bible itself. Analyzing these texts carefully, these scholars discovered that there were many observable differences that could be noted which led them to the conclusion that the Torah consisted of several strands of what had once been independent material. One strand referred to God by the name Yahweh, or at least by an unpronounceable set of consonants that were written as YHWH and it called the holy mountain of the Jews Mt. Sinai. Another strand of material called God by the name of Elohim and it called the holy mountain Mt. Horeb. A third strand of material reflected life in the Kingdom of Judah in the 7th Century BC. Still another strand appeared to be dated during the time of the Exile and perhaps even later. When they began to separate these strands from one another, other insights became available. The material that called God YHWH appeared to be centered in Jerusalem for it extolled the institutions identified with Jerusalem, such as the King, the High Priest and the Temple. It reflected that period of Jewish history in which the nation was undivided and was ruled from Jerusalem. The strand that called God Elohim reflected the values of the northern part of the land of the Jews that achieved independence from Jerusalem rule in a rebellion led by a military general named Jereboam against the newly crowned Jerusalem king named Rehoboam, who was, the Bible tells us, the son of Solomon and the grandson of King David. That rebellion, which occurred around the year 920BC, was successful and brought into being a new Jewish state called the Northern Kingdom, or Israel. Ultimately, this new nation had its capital and worship center in the city of Samaria and traced its Jewish roots back primarily to Joseph, whom it called the “favorite son” of the patriarch Jacob. Joseph was said to be the child of Jacob by his favorite wife Rachel and his father was said to have endowed him, among other things, with a coat of many colors. The patriarch Joseph in this narrative of the Elohist writer was always juxtaposed to his older brother Judah, who remained the dominant ancestral figure of the Jewish people whose life centered in Jerusalem. Judah was the son of Jacob by Rachel s older sister ‟ Leah. According to this story Jacob had been tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rachel by their father Laban. Only by marrying Rachel’s older sister did Jacob also manage to win Rachel as his second wife. Leah was described in this text rather cruelly as being unloved and even as having eyes that popped out of her head like those of a cow. This Elohist document was designed on many levels to counter the claims made by the tribe of Judah that they were destined to rule over these northern ten tribes. In the service of this theme the Elohist writer went so far as to assert that Judah betrayed his younger brother Joseph by selling him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver. In time, however, Joseph was said to have used this act of treachery to save all of his brothers, including Judah, from death by starvation, which he did by taking them down into Egypt, where they remained for 400 years, eventually falling into slavery, from which Moses would ultimately lead them to freedom in their “promised land”. As these strands came to be viewed as quite different stories written to reflect quite different times in history, these scholars began to recognize that they had cracked the code of biblical origins. The first five books of the Torah were not written by Moses or indeed by any single author. They were a composite of written materials that had been blended and intertwined into a single story over a period of as much as 500 years. Biblical scholarship had taken an enormous leap into modernity. The old claims, held so tenaciously for so long by so many, were shaken to their very foundations. The era of critical biblical scholarship was being born. We will return to this brief overview later and develop each of these four strands of the Torah in much greater detail, so stay tuned. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Join Mike McHargue to record the 200th episode of Ask Science Mike The 200th Episode of Ask Science Mike at the Amp Studios, Los Angeles, CA is coming up November 9th, and we’d like you to be there for a small, intimate live recording. Space is extremely limited, so sign up soon. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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in re: scrubbed attachment
by W. J. 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

McGuires and other colleagues, if you get only the O:E digest, apparently the server scrubs all attachments.I'd love to share this with you if you can't see it in your digest, but unless you include your real email address in any request to me, we're stuck in a loop!Anyway, here it is again.Marshall

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Anyone know a more complete version of this song.
by Lynda C 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

IV. Song to tune Aluetta. Contradiction, I say our contradiction. Obligation, I say our ob Contradiction, what happened to it now? Obligation, is where our Now we have our 4 X 4s Now we take our 4 X 4s Now we have our Battle plans Now we take our battle 4 X 4s, Battle Plans, OHhhh Die our death. Die our deaths That's our cross, OHhhhh (Now make assignments) Found in: LCX ADVANCED TRAINING SCHOOL Mathews, Joseph, Local Church PSU<https://wedgeblade.net/gold_path/data/trgp/100992.htm>, LCX Training School, December 1971 CONTRADICTION/STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE. Under Possible Rituals . Jim and Ellie were among the song creators. Do either of you recall this? What fun in the Archives!!!! Hope a number of you will be able to join us for the Fall Archive Sojourn in Nov. 14-18 …or any time. Be watching for the e-invitation! Lynda.

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Re: [Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 91, Issue 9
by Richard and Maria Maguire 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation Hi Marshall Could you please send the link to the actual document? I'd like to see it. The link in the email only refers to the email. and a search on wedgeblade for your name or the title gives me 0 responses. Best wishes Richard Maguiore On 09/10/2019 8:16 AM, oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net wrote: > Send OE mailing list submissions to > oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > oe-request(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > oe-owner(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of OE digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (W. J.) > 2. Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (Ellie Stock) > 3. Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (John Epps) > 4. Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (Jann McGuire) > 5. Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (W. J.) > 6. Re: Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation (Jack Gilles) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 15:10:39 +0000 (UTC) > From: "W. J." <synergi(a)yahoo.com> > To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > Subject: [Oe List ...] Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation > Message-ID: <1548301777.5333703.1570547439082(a)mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > I was inspired over the weekend to create a visual graphic (attached) to get onto a single page an image of the interpretive 'lenses' through which we read the Bible, including the largely unconscious implicit biases we may bring to the text that can distort or misread/misunderstand the context of the text.There's also 2 pages of text that quote Aaron Chalmers' scholarly article on 'The Influence of Cognitive Biases on Biblical Interpretation.'I'm trying to understand and appreciate why some folks are so emotionally attached to?their?version of what they?think?the Bible says about LGBTQIA people that they get very upset when their interpretation is questioned.Becoming aware of our cognitive biases is a helpful way to discover more graceful compassion in respectful listening.This chart is the best I can do for now to add to the discussion. Please use it (or not) or adapt it as you may see fit.Marshall >

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Layers and Lenses of Biblical Interpretation
by W. J. 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

I was inspired over the weekend to create a visual graphic (attached) to get onto a single page an image of the interpretive 'lenses' through which we read the Bible, including the largely unconscious implicit biases we may bring to the text that can distort or misread/misunderstand the context of the text.There's also 2 pages of text that quote Aaron Chalmers' scholarly article on 'The Influence of Cognitive Biases on Biblical Interpretation.'I'm trying to understand and appreciate why some folks are so emotionally attached to their version of what they think the Bible says about LGBTQIA people that they get very upset when their interpretation is questioned.Becoming aware of our cognitive biases is a helpful way to discover more graceful compassion in respectful listening.This chart is the best I can do for now to add to the discussion. Please use it (or not) or adapt it as you may see fit.Marshall

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Jim Bishop at 90 October 1.
by isobeljimbish＠optusnet.com.au 07 Oct '19

07 Oct '19

Dear colleagues far and wide, I hope life treats you gently, and there are special moments each day you savour. Here is Jim at his 90th Birthday Dinner. He began his Birthday in August, when the extended family gathered at a French inspired restaurant in a nearby suburb. 38 family came together, only two nephews missing! On Saturday he will be special guest at our weekly Neighbours brunch with cake included! The very last Celebration will be this coming Sunday. His 88 year old sister will bake a special Birthday cake and the Church community will wish him well. A life well lived. The Order EI and ICA experiences completely changed Jim’s life, as his Memoirs testify. Journey on, journey on dear colleagues. With love and blessings to each one, Isobel Bishop. Sent from my iPhone

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Global Buzz October
by ICA International 05 Oct '19

05 Oct '19

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... Global Buzz Report: October 2019 Click above or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-19/2019-10-01.php And: read the latest ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine brought to you now on Medium.com See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves ICAI Communications

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Re: [Oe List ...] Jim Bishop at 90 October 1.
by Dawn Collins 05 Oct '19

05 Oct '19

Happy Birthday, dear Jim and to Isobel and to all those who gathered with you on the extended celebration, warmest regards down under folksies! I think of the songs that came to us from Australia way that we sang with gusto--especially The Lord's Prayer sung to Waltzing Mathilda as one of the first. And I'm also reminded of the incredible ENERGY, KINDNESS, and CHEERFULNESS that radiated from the two of you as you embodied the mission in action. Rarely do we have the occasion to meet such as you both on our corporate revolutions around the sun. Keep taking your Peter Pan pills! The world is such a livelier and compassionate place with you, Jim at the milestone of 90 and with your bride, Isobel by your side. Grateful for your presence, dawn We love the Creator/Source/Spirit because the Spirit/Source/Creator first loved us.- 1 John 4:19 On Friday, October 4, 2019, 09:35:05 AM MDT, isobeljimbish--- via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Thank you Marianna 😊 And to you xo Sent from my iPhone On 4 Oct 2019, at 10:11 pm, Marianna Bailey via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Amen! On Oct 3, 2019, at 10:01 PM, isobeljimbish--- via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Dear colleagues far and wide,Jim thanks you all so much for your expressions of joy and love on his 90th milestone. 😊🐨🎈 I also thank you for your words of grace and loving support. May it be so; for each one of us, to the other. We are still those strange mysterious people who come out of the sewers and drains on the walkway/ footpath at night time. I think that is more or less a quote from the Church lecture- one of Joe’s vivid illustrations !Grace and peace and our love across the oceans,Jim and Isobel Sent from my iPhone On 4 Oct 2019, at 11:54 am, Lynda C via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: What a milestone! We celebrate your years of pioneering work in the church in Australia with a corporate pastorate that was put into practice in the Local Church Experiment. We celebrate the leadership and life of service both you and Isobel have demonstrated and continue to model. Lynda and John Cock From: OE <oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of OE List <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Reply-To: OE List <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 9:55 PM To: OE List <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Cc: "isobeljimbish(a)optusnet.com.au" <isobeljimbish(a)optusnet.com.au> Subject: [Oe List ...] Jim Bishop at 90 October 1. Dear colleagues far and wide, I hope life treats you gently, and there are special moments each day you savour. Here is Jim at his 90th Birthday Dinner. He began his Birthday in August, when the extended family gathered at a French inspired restaurant in a nearby suburb. 38 family came together, only two nephews missing! On Saturday he will be special guest at our weekly Neighbours brunch with cake included! The very last Celebration will be this coming Sunday. His 88 year old sister will bake a special Birthday cake and the Church community will wish him well. A life well lived. The Order EI and ICA experiences completely changed Jim’s life, as his Memoirs testify. Journey on, journey on dear colleagues. With love and blessings to each one, Isobel Bishop. <image001.jpg> Sent from my iPhone_______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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

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