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February 2020
- 30 participants
- 26 discussions
20 Feb '20
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.yiv6160179011mcnTextContent, #yiv6160179011 #yiv6160179011templateHeader .yiv6160179011mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6160179011 #yiv6160179011templateBody .yiv6160179011mcnTextContent, #yiv6160179011 #yiv6160179011templateBody .yiv6160179011mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6160179011 #yiv6160179011templateFooter .yiv6160179011mcnTextContent, #yiv6160179011 #yiv6160179011templateFooter .yiv6160179011mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } Wrestling with the Christian “I Am” and the Buddhist “I Am Not”
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To Be and Not To Be:
Wrestling with the Christian “I Am”
and the Buddhist “I Am Not”
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| Essay by Joran Slane Oppelt
February 20, 2020
I AM?
I was corrected pretty quickly by the faculty at the Multifaith Storytelling Institute.
I had just finished standing in front of the class and telling a dramatic, yet what I thought to be comical, story of Moses and the burning bush. I had told it the way it was written in the versions of the Old Testament (and commentaries) I had read. The way I had told it many times before.
Moses stumbled upon a vision, a disruption of reality, a hallucination or maybe an angel. He was commanded to go forth into Egypt and to free the Israelites. As any of us would, he responded with shock and incredulity. Surely, there had been some mistake.
“When I’m marching in there making these demands,” he asked, “who exactly should I say has sent me on this mission?”
God, or Elohim, replied, “Tell them ‘I am’ has sent me to you.”
When I finished my story, I was informed that the original Hebrew phrase, “ehyeh asher ehyeh” actually means something closer to “I am that I am,“ or “I will be what I will be.” One of my Jewish friends even pronounced the word “ehyeh” with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, “who knows?”
It was a much more open-ended and evasive response than the booming, declarative statement Christians have been told about for generations. One of the faculty even remarked, “There is no sense of the ‘I am’ in Judaism.” This is because there is no present tense of the verb “to be” in the Hebrew language.
Not only does this open up the “I am” (especially as a name for God) to questioning, it begs a larger existential question about agency and the spirit of theological inquiry and debate. Maybe God (or Elohim) did not stick a bolt of lightning in the sand and say, “I am” on that day. Maybe, he suggested -- and is suggesting -- that we open our minds to the process of figuring out what “being” means from this and each day forward.
I AM
With a background in Unity and the New Thought movement, the concept of “I Am” has played a central role in my religious thinking.
Unity founder Charles Fillmore once said, “If you can think of yourself as Spirit, as having all power and capacity … you begin to expand, and you go up to this high place in your consciousness ... You begin to realize that I am being lifted up, and as I lift up my I AM, why all of my thoughts are attracted to that high place because it is the magnet, it is the focal power of all ideas.”
Elsewhere, he writes, “Involution always precedes evolution. The I AM and its spiritual faculties must be sent down into the body consciousness before the evolution of the spiritual man can begin.”
In the Unity tradition, affirmations are preceded by denials — as a way to clear the interior space before filling it with new growth or intention. A denial may sound something like, “I am not limited by this body” or “I am not my past.” Affirmations are then declared in the positive, i.e. “I am Spirit” or “I am open to new growth and possibility.”
Further, when we say “I Am ...” we are saying “God in me is ...” or “God is ... through me.”
In a workshop that I host regularly, entitled The Art of Prayer, we practice something called “Three-Column Prayer,” which asks the participant to craft prayer requests using a three-column format and eventually transform those prayers into positive affirmations. An example might be “Father/Mother” (first column, name for God), “In the midst of us” (second column, location of God), “Guide me to the right place” (third column, prayer request). One possible affirmation then becomes “I / am / in the right place at the right time.”
Again, the “I Am” is simply another name for God.
In the Gospel of John, we read, “I am the door” (John 10:9) and “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). In Thomas’ revolutionary Gospel we read, “Split the wood and I am there; Lift the stone and I am there.”
Martin Buber (pioneer of “dialogical existentialism”) wrote about this relationship of the “I” to nature, others and Spirit in his highly influential book, I and Thou (1923). He indicated that the “I” that is in relationship to people and the environment qualitatively changes when it is in relationship to God. He even went so far as to say that all moments of genuine becoming require a “thou” and that “through the Thou, a person becomes ‘I.’”
Emptiness is Form, by Scott Snibbe
I AM NOT
According to Buddhists, this I (or self) does not actually exist.
In the Pali canon (the sacred teachings of Buddhism) the “self” we can point to and describe is actually made up of a set of composites or “heaps.” They are called the five skandhas (aggregates of clinging and craving) known as:
- Matter (rupa)
- Sensation (vedana)
- Perception (samjna)
- Thoughts (sankhara)
- Consciousness (vijnana)
Suffering is experienced when one identifies too closely with (or clings too tightly to) one or all of these heaps. Suffering is relieved when one lets go of this attachment or somehow realizes the illusory nature of identity (and these cravings).
In his classic, God is Not One, Stephen Prothero writes, “The most astonishing thing about Buddhism, and perhaps its greatest contribution to the conversation among the great religions, is its teaching that the thing we are most certain of -- the self -- is actually a figment of our imagination. Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Buddhists say if you think carefully enough you will see that you are not.”
Furthermore, not only is the self an illusion made of indiscriminate heaps (like the thing we call a “city” that is actually made of buildings and roads and surrounded by an invisible border), but the heaps themselves are actually empty. All existence arises in this empty field (or sunyata).
It is this philosophy of being that is described in the Heart Sutra, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”
Buddhism is a philosophy that surely raises more questions than it answers. But, unlike Judaism where we are encouraged to wrestle with these “God” ideas, in Buddhism the idea of God is worse than a fruitless inquiry, it is the beginning of suffering.
According to legend, The Buddha himself was questioned by a student about the nature of being and the cosmos, the principle of cause and effect and the idea of life after death.
The Buddha replied, “Imagine you were shot with a poison arrow. Imagine asking all of the questions you desired answers to. Who shot you? Where were they from? What color was his skin? Which direction did they run? Was it a longbow or crossbow? What wood and feathers were made to craft the weapon? You have given the poison the time to do its work. You will die before any of these questions are answered.”
Vietnamese monk Thich Naht Hahn summarizes this teaching for us, “Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.”
All of our questions about God, creation and being are, according to the Buddha, like this poison arrow. They only lead to more questions, more uncertainty and inevitably more unhappiness. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. By skillfully disengaging the craving for inquiry -- and the clinging to the “self” -- we remove the arrow of suffering.
RESOLUTION / REVOLUTION
The radical idea of emptiness proposed by the Buddhist concept of sunyata will feel all too real to those familiar with the subjects of quantum physics and general relativity.
Modern scientists have discovered what the mystics have known to be true for centuries. Reality is an illusion. Atoms are primarily made of vast regions of empty space, objects are fundamentally non-objects but rather waves and shadow, and there is a continuous energetic exchange happening between you and those around you at all times.
And yet we continue to pretend that Newton’s laws are the only code that runs the world, that -- like Descartes thought -- the cosmos is a giant machine that is winding up or down, and that we are relatively safe from the theories and uncertainties of relativity.
We continue to act as if our “self” is a solid mass of thoughts and feelings trapped and arising within a discrete “body” made of muscle and mind. We continue to navigate those bodies (and minds) around the planet, bumping into one another as if they don’t cause unending ripples of consequence throughout our families and communities.
We continue to act selfish and make poor decisions based on our sense of self-identity. And, we continue to project this sense of self and sentience onto the world around us. From our anthropomorphic and anthropocentric attempts to shape the world in our image to the practice of pareidolia (those faces and figures we spot in the clouds and popcorn ceilings overhead) all we see around us are heaps of other “selves.”
Theologian Ilia Delio writes in her book, A Hunger for Wholeness, that the cyborg (cybernetic organism) is a key symbol for contemplating the “self” today.
“A cyborg body,” she writes, “is not bounded by the skin but includes all external pathways along which information can travel. In this respect, the boundaries between human and animal, organism and machine, physical and nonphysical have become imprecise, giving rise to a new understanding of social subjectivity. As we become hybridized with our technologies, we are refashioning our understanding of the body as a material entity and a discursive process; hence what counts as human is not self-evident.”
I fear we have become so “self”-centered that when artificial intelligence (cybernetic organisms and quantum computing) makes humanity subservient to its aims and protocols, issuing creeds about the Creative force that gave it (and all things) life, we will stare slack-jawed in wonder and disbelief, asking, “How dare you?” and “Don’t you remember it was I who gave you life?” Just as the Earth now stares incredulously at us.
And as the boundaries continue to blur between self and no-self, artifice and organism, matter and process, wilderness and technology, we will continue to seek the middle way and resign ourselves to the fact that, yes, in so many beautiful ways, “I am.” And at the same time, in as many inextricable ways, “I am not.”
~ Joran Slane Oppelt
Read 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 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.
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Question & Answer
Q: By Fran
I often feel isolated, sad and afraid that the world is falling apart and that my grandchildren will not have a world to live in. And yet, I also feel hope; a feeling that this falling apart is connected somehow to a larger story in which humanity is being guided to change. What are your thoughts on this? How can spirituality guide us through these challenging times?
A: By Skylar Wilson
Dear Fran,
Thank you for sharing your process with us as it feels relevant to me and to what so many are going through right now. At some level we are all grieving this “falling apart” of ecosystems, education, socio-political systems, the criminal-justice system, religion, community, love etc. etc. These systems are breaking and are broken, the consequences of which are only growing louder.
And yet, it is my belief that these systems need to break down so that we can change them by changing ourselves. There are opportunities arising within this death-rebirth process and we need all hands on deck to help humanity to transition. I too have hope that when things fall apart there is a chance for something more aligned with natural law/life's intelligence to unfold and grow.
I’m happy that you brought up the idea of a larger story that’s inherently good and beautiful and coherent. Exactly! The idea that we are currently between cultural stories, stories about what humanity is here for, has been explored deeply by visionaries such as Thomas Berry, Joseph Campbell and others. Brian Swimme, Matthew Fox, Joanna Macy and others are guides who have helped so many to connect with the cosmic story that’s 13.8 billion years in the making...deepening internally and subjectively while externally diversifying and expanding. I believe that this emerging story has the power to guide us through these trying times as well as spiritual traditions and practices that are now being shared and invented for an awakening culture of changemakers to utilize to cocreate communities that are soulful and nourishing.
~ Skylar Wilson
Read and share online here
About the Author
Skylar Wilson, MA is the founder of Wild Awakenings, a conscious community of changemakers dedicated to the thriving of Earth, life, and humanity. He has led wilderness rites of passage journeys as well as ecological restoration teams for 18 years, specializing in creating sacred wilderness immersion experiences and interfaith ceremonies. Skylar is the cofounder and co-director of the Order of the Sacred Earth, a network of mystic warriors and activists dedicated to being the best lovers and defenders of the Earth that we can be. Skylar is the coauthor of the book by the same title as well as the co-host, with Jennifer Berit, of the podcast: "Our Sacred Earth" on Unity online radio. Skylar works closely with schools and organizations including the Stepping Stones Project in Berkeley, CA over the last 8 years while guiding organization-wide retreats, mentoring youth, group leaders, parents and elders. He also produces transformational events for thousands of people around the country including the Cosmic Mass, an intercultural healing ritual that builds community through dancing and the arts.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Origins of the Bible, Part XIX:
Micah, the Prophet Who Turned Liturgy Into Life
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
January 15, 2009
In my career as a bishop I have known churches that spent great time and effort on liturgy and worship. It was clearly the focus, the reason for being, of those congregations and their budgets reflected this priority. Altar hangings, clergy vestments and the garb of the supporting cast of liturgical characters were always coordinated. Sacristies, where the vestments and sanctuary coverings were stored, were orderly and reflected care and devotion. These churches also tended to invest heavily in music. A grand organ was generally an essential and, of course, one must have a grand organist to make the grand organ functional. Then there must be a professional choir since an all-volunteer choir might dissipate the beauty of both the organ and organist. Next, there must be a printed bulletin to guide the worshipers, for whom the liturgy was designed, through the Sunday process.
I do not mean to be critical of this. Liturgy that is well done does invite the congregation into the symbols of transcendence. It transforms worship from being the town meeting that it has become in many congregations. Town meeting liturgy is immediately recognized for it is dominated by announcements of coming events and a public listing of the sick, the recently deceased, the soon-to-be married, those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes these announcements are overt, while at other times they are camouflaged under the guise of prayer. These public displays serve to remind people that they are not forgotten and to massage delicate egos. I wonder, however, if either the liturgies of grand proportions or those of a town meeting understand worship, which means the act of investing infinite worth in God as well as in those who are gathered and in those that this worship will lead them to serve. Liturgy is not an end, but a means to an end. There was one prophetic figure in the biblical tradition who understood this better than anyone else. His name was Micah and to his story we turn this week.
If people have any conscious awareness of the content of the book of Micah, it is probably a vague recollection of his suggestion that the messiah must be born in Bethlehem, because part of the Jewish expectation was that messiah would be heir to the throne of David. This idea found its way into the birth stories of Jesus in both Matthew and Luke and thus gained familiarity by being repeated in Christmas pageants. Matthew, the scripture quoter par excellence, refers directly to this text in Micah when King Herod asks his scribes to search the scriptures to locate the place where messiah is to be born so that he can redirect the Magi’s quest to find him. Luke uses this Micah text indirectly to demonstrate the relationship of lineal descent between David and Jesus, when he states that it was by order of the Emperor, Caesar Augustus, that all the descendants of King David had to return to their ancestral home to be enrolled. While this is probably the best known quote from Micah, the power of this book is not found here, but is located in the drama he describes later in the sixth chapter of his small work.
Micah thought of himself as an expert in the law or the Torah. One gets the sense that he yearned to demonstrate his legal skill before the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, but that opportunity had never come to him. In chapter six, however, he fantasizes about a trial that was designed to be even more dramatic and universal than one that might have occurred in Jerusalem. It had to do with the proper role of liturgy. Under the skill of Micah’s pen he envisioned this trial as being conducted before the throne of God, who served as the ultimate judge. For Micah the mountains and the hills must serve as the jury. Israel was called to stand before this judge and jury as the accused. Micah cast himself in the role of the prosecuting attorney. The trial opens as Micah says to the people of Israel: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains and let the hills hear your voice…. for the Lord has a controversy with God’s people and God will now contend with Israel.” Court is open and Micah’s grand trial of the chosen people has begun.
The charges are then read out. God demands to be answered by the accused by asking, “What have I done to you? In what have I wearied you?” Why, God is demanding to know, do you not understand how to serve me? Then God recites the things that God has done for Israel throughout history: deliverance from bondage, raising up leaders like Moses, Aaron and Miriam, giving the Torah, the law, and protecting these chosen ones from their enemies. This significant list of divine benevolences has, however, clearly not gained for God the hearts of the people.
Israel, hearing these charges, feels the pangs of guilt and seeks to make amends. The response of the people, however, is to recite their faithfulness in religious observances and proper liturgies. Trapped inside this misunderstanding of what it is that God seeks, Israel says, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before God with burnt offerings and with calves a year old?”
>From God, however, comes only silence. The people respond to these charges as if God were interested primarily in religion or in worship. Wondering if their religious observances have been deemed by God to be inadequate, these people vow to enhance their sacrifices. If God is not pleased with the oil that burns the sacrifices or with the year-old calf that is their burnt offering, then maybe God would be pleased if they expanded their worship to new levels of magnanimity: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?” Surely such heightened acts of worship would win for Israel the divine favor that they presumed God desired. God is still silent, however, and once again the people of Israel interpreted this silence to mean that their worship and their offerings were still inadequate and once again they sought to make their sacrificial liturgies more worthy of their disappointed God.
God, do you want us to offer our children, our most precious possessions? Would the re-introduction of child sacrifice satisfy you? That is the meaning of the words that Micah now places on the lips of the people: “Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” This dramatic scene reaches a crescendo before God finally responds and this response forms in my opinion the most dramatic and powerful words recorded in the book of Micah: “God has shown you, people of Israel, what is good! And what does the Lord require of you?” It is not beautiful liturgical words, burnt offerings, animal sacrifices or even ten thousands rivers of oil. It is not even the sacrifice of your most cherished children. The only requirement God lays on God’s people is “to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
The trial is over. The verdict has been rendered. One does not please God with acts of worship. The only sacrifice that God values is the offering of lives lived in justice, mercy and humility. The people of Israel must understand anew what the meaning of worship really is. Worship is human justice being offered to God. Human justice is worship being lived out among men and women.
Micah then wrote down his words for the people and they were treasured by them at first simply as the inspired words of their prophet. In time, however, someone decided that in these words they were hearing the “Word of God,” so his writings were ultimately added to the sacred scriptures of the Jewish people and in that capacity began to transcend their original setting and to be read not only across the centuries in Temple and synagogue worship services, but pored over also by the rabbis. It was through Micah that the people learned that God requires from them not beautiful liturgy and sacrifices, but “to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.”
God was never a static concept among the Jews. On the pages of the Jewish Scriptures, God was always evolving, changing and growing. In the writings of Hosea, God was defined anew as love. In the writings of Amos, God was defined anew as justice. Now, in the writings of Micah, the people learned that worship is not about form and ceremony. It is not about wearing vestments in a particular style, about chanting the liturgy in effective ways. It is not about a sacred prayer book or a grand organ. It is not about where the altar is located, the style of the liturgy or the nature of one’s sacrifices. Worship is always and foremost about living faithfully and ascribing ultimate worth to a God who is manifested in the fullness of human life.
Throughout the national history of the Jews, it was the prophets, who stood outside the sacred traditions, and not the priests, who stood within it, who again and again caused the meaning of God to grow. It was the prophets who slowly, but surely, transformed the tribal God of the Jews into a set of universal principles. It was the prophets who made Jesus of Nazareth possible. He was clearly in the prophetic tradition when he proclaimed that the love of God was not to be compromised by religion and that God was to be found in the recognition that there is nothing any of us can do or be that can finally separate us from this divine love. This was demonstrated by Jesus in episode after episode when he set aside religious rules so that the ultimate principle of justice, that no life falls outside this love of God, could become operative. That is what Jesus’ disciples saw in him and this insight drove them to assert that in the Christ experience, all human barriers fade. In Christ, said Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, gay nor straight, baptized nor unbaptized, bond nor free. To assert this as the ultimate meaning of God is the essence of worship. So worship is, therefore, not about liturgy, but about life. Worship leads us not to build ecclesiastical institutions, but to humanize our world. Micah thus becomes the biblical “Word of God” by which all liturgy must be judged.
~ John Shelby Spong
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Dear Friends,
Greetings from Pittsburgh--a beautiful day--not only the bright sunshine but Eva's successful surgery!
Just returned from the hospital a little while ago. The day finally arrived! Eva's surgery on her carotid artery started around noon, about an hour and a half later than originally scheduled. Surgery was over around 2pm, followed by the gradual progression to the recovery room and ICU by around 3pm. Couldn't see her until visiting hours started again at 4pm. Naturally, Eva is relieved it's over, very tired, talked a little with us but just needs her rest. The right side of her neck is swollen, and I imagine she will have a bit of discomfort the next few days or longer. Don't know how long she will be in ICU or the hospital. Dr. said it could be 1-3 days--will know more tomorrow. Total recovery 4-6 weeks. I will be here at least until Tuesday, maybe longer, if needed.
Thank you beyond words for your love, continuing prayers, lit candles, and wonderful support through all of this. You have been such an encouraging spirit community surrounding us.
Grace and peace,blessings and love,
Love,Elinor/Ellie/EJ :)
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March 2020
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I enjoyed Matthew Fox's blog today. Maybe some of you might like it.
https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/2020/02/19/the-spiritual-leaders…
Jann McGuire
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Thank you, thank you, Jim. Thot it was Order, not Progressive. Zoe
Sent using myEarthLink
On Sat Feb 15 15:42:35 MST 2020 James Wiegel wrote:
https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/funeral-service-for-an-inclus…
Jim Wiegel
“We are all time travelers journeying into the future. But let us make that future a place we want to visit. “ — Stephen Hawkings
>
> On Feb 15, 2020, at 12:23 PM, Zoe Barley via OE <
>
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> oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net (mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net)
>
> > wrote:
>
> e Funeral Service for an Inclusive Community.
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Thanks, Karen. I have Bill Bailey's and will check out the others. Still hoping someone has the Rob Stoner piece.
Peace. Zoe
Sent using myEarthLink
On Sat Feb 15 14:24:53 MST 2020 Karen Snyder wrote:
Zoe,
Likely you know about the Archive Team efforts to create a website (
icaglobalresearch.org (http://icaglobalresearch.org)
) for past documents of our work. Yet to be scanned are many files of the documentation of ways colleagues have celebrated life and death. More will be done on this, but at the moment you can see a half dozen that have been scanned to date by going to the Inner Life Collection, under Rituals: Memorials:
https://icaglobalarchives.org/collections/exploring-inner-life/history/
.
Memorials
“Celebration of the Completed Life of Elizabeth Hall Glassner (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/6921.pdf)“, April 30, 1972
Completed Life Ritual of John D. Mathews (https://wedgeblade.net/gold_path/data/hisj/10110401.htm) August 11, 1972
Buss, Sarah, “Death of Emig Child (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/6964.pdf)“, Collegium, October 30, 1972
Holcombe, George, “On Dying One’s Death (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/6980.pdf)“, November 11, 1973
Mathew, Bishop James, “Witness at JWM Funeral (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/7072.pdf)“, October 20, 1977
Salmon, Bill, “Living with Death as a Friend (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20035.pdf)“, July 25, 2014
Completed Life of Rev. William Bailey (https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/20819.pdf) June 19, 2017
I hope this is helpful to you.
Peace,
Karen Snyder Troxel
> On Feb 15, 2020, at 1:23 PM, Zoe Barley via OE <
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>
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> oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net (mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net)
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> > wrote:
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> Some further information. I have a paper copy but am seeking a digital copy. The Funeral Service was written by Rob Stoner August 2009 and has under that 'by Polly Moore on September 10, 2014.
>
> Thanks again.
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Zoe Barley via OE
> > Sent: Feb 15, 2020 11:46 AM
> > To: "
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net (mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net)
> >
> > "
> > Cc: Zoe Barley
> > Subject: [Oe List ...] Funeral Service
> >
> > I am seeking a copy of the Funeral Service for an Inclusive Community. As some of you may know John Singleton, Louise Singelton's husband, died this month and I thought sharing the Funeral Service with her might be helpful in planning his service.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
> > Zoe Barley
> > 116 Jackson Street
> > Denver Colorado 80206
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> > zbarley(a)earthlink.net (mailto:zbarley@earthlink.net)
> >
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> > 720-318-1171 (tel:7203181171)
> >
> > (mobile)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 303-388-9191 (tel:3033889191)
> >
> > (land line)
> >
> >
>
>
> Zoe Barley
> 116 Jackson Street
> Denver Colorado 80206
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> zbarley(a)earthlink.net (mailto:zbarley@earthlink.net)
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> 720-318-1171 (tel:7203181171)
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> (mobile)
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> 303-388-9191 (tel:3033889191)
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> (land line)
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> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
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Dear Friends,
So, here's the latest update on our daughter Eva, as she continues to recover from her 12/30/19 stroke that paralyzed her left side--some good news, and I hope it holds... (For some this is new, for others a recap.).
The cause of her stroke was a 99% blockage of her right carotid artery. Surgery (endarterectomy) was scheduled to unblock that artery in order to prevent future strokes. After 3 postponements of her surgery due to insurance issues, Eva found out that Medicaid approved her application, so she is now covered by Medicaid from January 1 (not the first two days--Dec 30,31--ambulance, ICU and 30+tests)--how much that covers, I don't know.
Her surgery is now scheduled for Wednesday, February 19. We are hoping there is not another change... Post-surgery, she will be in ICU for a day or two and then come home for a 4-6 weeks recovery time.
In the meantime she continues to make good progress with therapy exercises at home, regaining her strength and mobility. Walking is good, and balance is much improved. Arm, hand and finger use is getting better, but she still does not have feeling in her arm, hand and fingers which makes it difficult to pick up, grasp, and hold objects; feel and locate objects if she is not seeing them; and discern where objects are touching her without looking. The healing brain is still remaking those connections. Her speech continues to improve, but she says it feels like she has marbles in her mouth when she talks. She is not yet able to drive, so someone must take her to do shopping or errands or go to medical/therapy appointments. She still needs time during the day to rest and heal.
She remains in good spirits; but, after all the delays, she says she is "so done with this". She is not looking forward to the surgery, but she just wants to be completely well and mobile and return to her work as a childcare teacher. Hopefully, the surgery will enable this to happen sooner than later.
Thank you for your continuing love, thoughts, prayers, lit candles, emails, calls, and cards. We are overwhelmed and deeply grateful for your kind expressions of support. You have helped carry Eva and all of us through these last weeks.
Some, who did not receive Eva's last name and contact info in a previous email, have asked for that, so that is below.
Many of you have also shared health or challenging situations that you are experiencing personally or with your family, so our prayers are with you as well.
I will be heading to Pittsburgh February 18 before the surgery. My next update will be post surgery.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Grace and peace,blessings and love ~
Ellie :)elliestock@aol.com
Eva Neszpaul446 Union AvenuePittsburgh, PA 15205evajworks(a)aol.com
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2/13/20, Progressing Spirit: Gretta Vosper: Queen's Dream; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 13 Feb '20
by Ellie Stock 13 Feb '20
13 Feb '20
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Queen's Dream
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| Essay by Rev. Gretta Vosper
February 13, 2020Oscar Buzz
Late in December, just as Oscar buzz begins, I choose five or six movies to explore during the five or six weeks leading up to the awards. Originally, the films, chosen long before the nominations are announced, were all ones I believed would receive a nomination for Best Picture. Only once had I chosen a movie that wasn’t and I swear, if I’d known it was a musical, it would never have been on the billing!
More recently, we’ve branched out into movies that should have received Best Picture, or, as in this year, movies I thought would be nominated for a variety of things – best supporting actor or screenwriter, for instance. Part of that shift was motivated by the consistent and problematic whiteness of the awards. The only way to get around that was to make our own list. Having done so, only two of the films we watched received nominations at all. Which may or may not say something significant.
The first three films we watched had subtitles: The Farewell, Parasite, and For Sama.[1] Often few have seen the film and I am adamant about not giving out spoilers (though For Sama spoilers, a documentary film about Aleppo and the war in Syria, play themselves out on our nightly news). But I’ll have to be more careful: when I spoke about Parasite, the only spoiler-ish thing I said was that if you cover your eyes, you can’t read the subtitles. Unfortunately, many took that to mean the movie is a brutal bloodbath, which it really isn’t, and avoided it completely, missing one of the best films ever made, in my opinion.
The Farewell, with comic brilliance, displayed the challenges of two worlds trying to be one. Parasite – well, you’re just going to have to see it. Layer after layer of storyline, all of it believable, all of it offering shades of truths we may or may not want to explore. For Sama, a powerful documentary made for Sama, a child born into the war in Aleppo, turns our eyes toward the simplicity of heroism, the tragedy of death, and the idiocy of some of the things that demand them both.
Black History Month
We entered Black History Month with Queen and Slim, as powerful a film about the disaster that is race relations in the United States (and elsewhere) as you will ever find. Had we no title for the movie, we would not have known the names of the characters until very late in the film, tying the worn truths to a universalism that is as stunning as it is disgraceful. Perhaps it wasn’t nominated for any awards because it lays those truths bare. Perhaps, as others will argue, there were just too many great films this year. Whatever….
Each week, I write a piece to read as the “Focused Moment”. It’s not really a reading; I guess you could call it spoken word. Scott improvises on the piano as I read and continues to play once I’ve taken my seat, providing a meditative moment. On the Sunday we looked at Queen and Slim, my challenge was to get in underneath the privilege I have experienced my whole life, privilege that even makes me oblivious to its enormous power. Not only do I know that privilege, because of it, I cannot accurately see the price it exacts. Still, I tried to bring my ignorance up against the truths laid bare in the movie and reported in too many (or too few?) nightly news updates.
I know my mother held me
through those bright afternoons
when I was too sick to go to school.
She held me close, up against her breast,
pillows stuffed under her arm
so she could hold me longer,
steady me until I fell asleep sitting upright,
the only way to still my heaving chest.
But I wonder what she thought about
as she sat there:
the day she’d had;
when I’d get well;
the meals she’d make tomorrow;
next week’s visit to the eye doctor;
or when my sisters would get home from school.
I know she didn’t wonder
if my sisters would come home at all.
I know she didn’t worry for their safety
except, perhaps, from rubber balls they threw too hard,
skipping ropes they swung too fast,
boys they might be kissing far too soon.
We were children
and we glowed.
White.
Not brown, or black, or in between.
Not already scarred inside
by words learned at kitchen tables,
shared in playgrounds,
embedded in “the norm”.
White.
Not fighting an uphill battle
every single day
on the gravel of the playground,
torn knees from play,
and blackened eyes from not.
White.
Not afraid to use the washroom,
running home and back
so fast you’d not get caught,
avoiding hatred, hard edges,
and fists that didn’t clench ‘til you arrived.
White.
Not met halfway home
by a mother frantic that an hour has gone
and you just playing in the schoolyard
working to overcoming the bruises
you’d tell her happened while you played.
My mother’s arms around me,
I slept,
no greater problem for her to bear
than the complication of a common cold;
no greater fear for her to quell
than any mother with a child
who glowed
white.[2]Another Poem
There was already a poem, of sorts, in Queen and Slim that pulls the movie beyond race to a wider audience, inviting all in the audience to connect. Powerfully. Slim, who met Queen on a Tinder date, asks Queen what it is she is looking for in a guy. Her response is exquisitely considered and plucks the strings of the universal heart.
I want a guy to show me myself.
I want him to love me so deeply,
I'm not afraid to show him how ugly I can be.
I want him to show me scars I never knew I had.
But I don't want him to make them go away.
I want him to hold my hand while I nurse them myself.
And I want him to cherish the bruises they leave behind.[3]
Sigh. Can’t you just feel that? Wow. (p.s. If you have that sort of partner, don’t gloat.)
On Sunday morning, rather than building on Queen’s relationship ideals, I teased her response into the cultural need for white to see black, and black, alongside white, to take responsibility for healing. To challenge white people to learn to love a population they too often fear. To let that love be so deep, that the insidious white demand upon black for social perfection, non-confrontational engagement, ongoing submission, and a politeness too-reminiscent of slavery, might evaporate, allowing for real conversations, real interactions to take place, possible simply because no one feels uneasy anymore. An atmosphere of trust could unfold in that kind of love. I stretched Queen’s dreamy relationship hopes beyond the very white need to fix everything; though there is much that is systemic that whites need to fix, there is much out of which whites must keep their noses and simply stand back as the space for healing opens up within the black community itself, graced by the simple fact that it can. In the middle of such a relationship, truth can go both ways, scars will be uncovered but not universalized; not ever universalized. And each will find their own ways to heal, bearing their scars forward with humility.
Not a bad message, I suppose.
Deeper Truths; Bigger Challenges
When I read the quote the next day, however, it spoke deeper truths to me. It spoke of our quest for the kind of perfection we have only ever cast up to the heavens or into the depths of the sea, sought in the forest, or heard in the screams of one we’ve believed possessed. Have we not long wanted a god that sees our every flaw and failure and loves us anyway? To find a way to stand humbly before that god and still be loved in all our ugliness? Wanted the guidance such a god would provide, steering us toward truths we might otherwise feel compelled to outrun? Feel the strength of such a god in our effort to heal ourselves, incorporating that god’s courage, wisdom, and love into that much needed undertaking? And, at the end of it, don’t we still want to carry the remnant bruises forward, reminding ourselves of the work we did with the help of that powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving god?
Of course, it is not just a racial issue that hammers at the foundations of our social order. Or a gender identity or sexuality issue. Or political, social, or familial. It is an issue that is experienced by all of us and that undermines our self-confidence, and our willingness to be vulnerable, our ability to see what is really before us, something Queen and Slim are finally able to do.
At the heart of our deepest despair is the pandemic issue of not being seen.
When we stand before one another, we are each clothed with our social or professional standings, our gender, race, sexuality, religion, or any of the myriad decorations by which the human brain sorts and categorizes those it meets. Indeed, we are cloaked in these attributes even as we stand before our own bathroom mirrors. What would it take to be seen? What would it take to create a world in which being seen was a serious undertaking, the prime directive, perhaps?
No Help from Our Brains
I believe our brains fail us in this work, prejudiced as they are toward their millisecond analysis of what stands before them and which results in a barely evolved assessment of whether to flee, fight, freeze, or f*&k. We need to get beyond these basic drives and our brains won’t help us if we don’t help them.
As we face the most critical challenge humanity has ever faced – climate and ecosystem disaster and the subsequent breakdown of civilization as we know it – falling back on our evolutionary four f’s will be the instinctual choice. Not doing so will require that we will already have prepared for these coming challenges and through far more than the use of advanced scientific and ecological breakthroughs. Not doing so will depend upon our providing our brains with credible options. It is my belief that addressing the issue of not being seen can be one of the most potent means through which we can find and trust one another into the unknown future humanity will face. Seeing one another is one of the most important things we can train our brains to do.
Really Seeing; Really Being Seen
How do we do that? We get our heads out of the mud and muck of our religious traditions and into the work of engagement, of bringing people together so that they can fall in love with one another in the deeply honest, deeply accepting way that Queen offers us. Creating space for intimacy, inviting and exhibiting vulnerability, laying out the spectrum of beingness that community offers, and the space and patience it can provide for healing to happen. Our brains may not know how to do this intuitively, but our experience, our fear, and our longing can teach us, beginning with the stories of our childhoods and the accretions through which we learned to hide our truths from both ourselves and others.
It is not easy to be vulnerable. It is not easy to expose our scars, our ugliness to one another. Sometimes, it is not even easy for us to accept we have scars or ugliness at all, so strong has been our habituation to the social constructs in which we live and by which we calculate our “success”. But we are more alike than we often remember – our scars, our shames, our weaknesses, our addictions, our disasters. In our beauty and our ugliness, we can reflect one another’s truths and learn to embrace both theirs and our own.
Let me see you. Let us see one another.~ Rev. Gretta Vosper
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. Visit her website here.
Read online here[1] I admired one reviewer who referred to doing the work of getting over the two-inch high wall at the bottom of the screen; brilliant way to nudge people past the perception that subtitles are an obstruction![2] White, ©2020 gretta vosper[3] Queen, Queen and Slim, © 2019, Universal Pictures; Lena Waithe, Screenwriter; Director, Melina Matsoukas |
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Question & Answer
Q: By A Reader
I recently read that a team of astrophysicists have concluded that there are over a trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Given what we know and given the photos of the universe available today, how can I possibly conceive of God?
A: By Carl Krieg
Dear Reader,During biblical times the three-tiered universe provided a place for God and for us: God was up, the nether world was down, and we stood on the plane in the middle. Thinking he had disproven a religious hypothesis, the first Russian cosmonaut went up in space and reported that he found no god up there. Today, not only do we know the world is a sphere, with no up and down, but also that the universe “out there” is literally beyond imagination. There may be a trillion galaxies that we can see in theory- the observable universe- but then there exists what can never be known because it is accelerating in its moving away, and its light will never reach us. We will remain in total and eternal ignorance of that unknowable part of the universe. We are, alas, a tiny speck in this ocean of infinity. And yet, the presence of God is as near to us as our neighbor. Remembering one of Jesus’ most famous parables, a man approached Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life? Jesus responded quoting the Shema: You know the answer. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And the man asked: who is my neighbor? “A man was walking…” Jesus tells us, and was beaten and robbed, “and then a Samaritan came along…”. We all know the story. When we love, we make God real in our own life, and this experience is so much more than conceiving God, it is manifesting God. God is love, and that is something we can experience and know right here and right now.There continue to be many attempts to find a place for God to be in the universe. Some say God can be identified as the consciousness of the universe. Some say God may be found in extra dimensions that exist right alongside us. Some say in the dark energy inhering space-time. Perhaps. But we need not look any further than the fullness of God’s creation that surrounds us and the love that upholds us. And when we in turn reach out in love, we do better than conceive of God. We make God incarnate in our own life.Most people today in our culture do not even use the word “God”, and that trend continues and increases. Many in the church decry the trend toward secularism, but the movement seems not only inevitable, but is, I think, beneficial, and beneficial in the sense that it focuses on the essence of who God is and what God wants. The Hebrew prophet Amos put it starkly, teaching us that God hates and despises the festivals and takes no delight in the solemn assemblies of religious institution, but instead desires that “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. Jesus echoed that sentiment exactly, and secularists are as capable of fighting for justice as are religious folk. We don’t need to use the word “God” when we have the word “love”. And we don’t need to conceive of God in the abstract when we can love our neighbor. As we gaze into the infinity of the stars out there, we have three options for the attitude we can take. One is to believe that the universe is amoral. It cares not about anything, just moving along. The second is the thought that evil runs the show. The last is to see everything as imbued with love, and that really is the message of Jesus’ life, death and new life, that ultimately, death and destruction are overcome, and love rules the day.~ Carl Krieg
Read and share online here
About the Author
Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith, and The Void and the Vision. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife, Margaret, in Norwich, VT. |
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| 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! |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
The Origins of the Bible, Part XVIII:
Amos, The Prophet Who Transformed God Into Justice
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
December 18, 2008Not every character in the Bible starts out to be a hero. Indeed, one of the great themes of biblical literature is that it is the meek and the lowly who become the channels through which God is known in new ways. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is portrayed as expressing this theme in the Magnificat when she is made to utter these words, “For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,” but later generations “will call me blessed.” The Old Testament prophet who makes this truth powerfully real is named Amos. Today we turn to his story.
Amos was a citizen of the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the 8th century BCE. He lived in the village of Tekoa where he was a herdsman and a keeper of sycamore trees, employment that hardly demanded high academic achievements or the credentials that produced great expectations. In those days Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II was on the throne of the Northern Kingdom. The major powers of the world were preoccupied with their own problems and with each other, which allowed these two small Jewish states to bask in an Indian summer of prosperity, peace and wealth. The distribution of that wealth was, however, hardly balanced. The worship places of the Jewish world were crowded on holy days and religion was popular among the greedy ones who dominated the social order. There thus appeared to be little relationship between the words of the popular religion and the practices of people’s lives in the public arena. In many ways that is not dissimilar from the current situation in the United States, where a few have achieved fortunes by greed and manipulation of the markets, creating a situation in which the wealthy are increasingly wealthy and the poor are increasingly poor and people even now seem not to be concerned. This dichotomy, however, burned itself into the consciousness of this simple herdsman named Amos and, like the proverbial “Hound of Heaven,” it allowed him no rest until he had addressed this issue overtly and publicly. Amos packed his suitcase and journeyed from Tekoa in the land of Judah to the shrine of Bethel in the Northern Kingdom to make his witness.
When he arrived Amos entered the courtyard of this holy place, where all of his suspicions were confirmed. He saw the crowds dressed in their finery busily attending to holy things while the poor outside the city gates were largely ignored. Amos wondered how he might get the crowd’s attention. He was a clever man, however, and knew how to appeal to the instincts of the people. He found a corner in the courtyard, set up a soap box and then, using one of the oldest tricks in human history, he began to solicit first the curiosity and later the full attention of the crowd. Let me try to recreate the story.
“Come closer,” Amos shouted from his makeshift pulpit, “Let me tell you about the sins of the people of the city of Damascus.” Amos knew that everyone likes to hear gossip about the moral weaknesses of their neighbors and so as he excoriated the Damascans the crowds grew. Next he turned his judgment first on the people of Gaza and then on Tyre, condemning the sinful practices found in both cities. The crowd, loving it, grew even larger as Amos continued to appeal to their prejudices about and suspicions of their neighbors. This strange looking rube from the south said the things they wanted to hear. Then Amos moved to larger targets and his oratory rose to new heights as he focused on the nation states surrounding the Northern Kingdom. First it was the Edomites and about their sins Amos got more specific. The Edomites had pursued “their brothers with a sword, showing them no pity and they had allowed anger to tear perpetually” at the fabric of their society. The ecstatic crowd began to shout, “You tell ’em, preacher.” With every loud voice of encouragement, the people gathered in ever greater numbers. Next it was the Amorites’ turn. According to Amos, they had attacked Gilead and “ripped up the women with child in order to enlarge their borders.” As Amos pronounced his message of doom on these nations, the people gathered around him roared their approval. When he turned to the very unpopular Moabites the frenzy of the crowd exploded.
Next Amos, with the crowd in the palm of his hand and fully attentive, spoke in a bare whisper. “Now let me tell you about the sins of the Southern Jews,” he said. These Southern Jews were the people with whom the Jews of the North were the most competitive and with whom they had the deepest rivalry. The relationship between Judah in the South and Israel in the North was like that of New Zealand and Australia today. Signs in shops in New Zealand announce that “New Zealanders have two favorite teams, the All Blacks (the name of New Zealand’s national team) and anyone who is playing Australia.” So to hear their Jewish rivals in the south be condemned was music to the ears of the Northern Jews. The crowd pressed closer to this strange messenger and its size continued to increase dramatically. Those Southern Jews, Amos said, “despised the Torah; they did not keep God’s commandments. Their lies caused them to err constantly,” but God’s justice is sure, he promised, and so Jerusalem will be “devoured by the fire of God.” The crowd was ecstatic with enthusiasm, clapping and cheering. No one budged as this crowd-pleasing evangelist reached his climax. Now with every ear straining to hear, this herdsman arrived at the conclusion for which he had journeyed from Tekoa to the King’s chapel in Bethel. His message was ready and so Amos turned to his climax.
“Now,” he said, “let me tell you about the worst people in the world.” The crowd could hardly wait to hear who that would be. They were not prepared, however, for what was to come. “You Jews of the Northern Kingdom,” he said, “are the ultimate culprits in God’s world. You are the ones who worship ostentatiously in the sacred shrines, but even as you worship, you sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes. You trample the poor in the dust of the earth. You violate one another sexually. You worship at every altar in garments stolen from the labor of the poor. You profane holy places with heavy drinking of wine purchased with fines levied against the meek. You corrupt holy people, encouraging them to violate their sacred vows. You even silence the prophets.” The crowd was suddenly silent and the smiles disappeared from their faces. Then Amos spoke of the punishment that God would send. “This judgment is inevitable,” he screamed. It was a devastating message. The stunned crowd took a while to recover from shock, so Amos continued to drive home his key insights. “Worship isolated from life is of no value. Worship is nothing but justice being offered to God, and justice is nothing but worship being lived out. If worship and justice are ever separated, idolatry is the inevitable result.” It was a stirring message, but suddenly it was not a popular one.
When the members of the crowd recovered sufficiently to respond, they sent for a priest from the Shrine at Bethel named Amaziah and asked him to come to their defense, for they said, “Amos has conspired against you and the land and we are not able to bear his words.” Amaziah was the voice of the established religion. He would brook no more of this interference with worship at the King’s Shrine and so to Amos he said: “O, Seer, go home, flee away to your land in Judah. Prophesy there if you must, but you are never again to come again to Bethel for this is the king’s sanctuary. This is the temple of our nation. Your words are not welcome here.”
Amos responded to Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor even a prophet’s son. I am a herdsman, a dresser of sycamore trees, yet the Lord took me from my flocks and called me to prophesy to the people of Israel.” Once again, he repeated his charges. “The songs of your holy places will become nothing but wailing to the Lord. You cannot worship while you trample the poor. You cannot wring money from the poor to line your pockets with greed. God will turn your sacred feasts into mourning and your pious songs into lamentations.” The preaching of Amos was now more than the people were willing to tolerate and so Amos was physically driven from the shrine. Rejected and defeated he returned to his humble life in Tekoa. In this newly imposed exile he wrote out his prophetic message, and that message became known as the words of Amos the Prophet. In time people heard transcendent truth in his words and finally these words were added to the sacred text of the Jewish people and were thus read in worship settings in the temples, synagogues and holy places. That was when people began to recognize that in the words of Amos, they were beginning to hear the “Word of the Lord.” That is how the words of Amos came to echo through the centuries. In that process, God was inevitably redefined as justice. Worship and justice could never again be separated in true Judaism and worship came to be viewed, as Amos had suggested, as human justice offered to God while justice was seen as divine worship being acted out. In this context justice became another name for God.
It was through the work of the prophets primarily that God was redefined in Jewish history. Love became the name for God through the writings of Hosea. Justice became the name for God through the writings of Amos. The prophets really do matter, not because they were the predictors of the future as so many of us were once taught, but because they were able to see more deeply into the meaning of God. The prophets more than anyone else made it possible some eight hundred years later for people to see and to hear the presence of God in the life of a crucified one named Jesus of Nazareth. The life of Jesus pointed to a divine nature marked by the dimension of love that Hosea had added to the meaning of God and the dimension of justice that Amos had added to the meaning of God. That resulted in a new understanding of consciousness in which divinity and humanity seemed to flow together as one.
The biblical story was never static, nor is the human understanding of God. It is idolatry and an act of faithlessness that is being expressed when any one thinks that all truth has finally been revealed and that someone or some institution actually possesses it.~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
The Meaning and Challenge of Resurrection
with John Dominic Crossan
Renowned New Testament scholar and historian of early Christianity, John Dominic Crossan will be speaking at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Santa Barbara, CA, on February 21 & 22, 2020. READ ON ...
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