April 2020 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Black Academy
by Jack Gilles 22 Apr '20

22 Apr '20

Dawn, I thought you would like to hear a response to your experience of the BA. We held one in Cleveland as well. The Metro Cadre recruited it as we had some great black women and a few men in it. They invited other church people, but the group that signed up included others, a total of around 50. As Larry Ward got up and started, a man stood up, and slowly walked out. Then as he began again another. This happened four times. I and another white person were sitting in the back as observers. I caught a “raised eyebrow” signal from the second teacher and we two got up quietly and left. We listened and watched for either an explosion of noise from within or others coming out. No more left and it proceeded. You might like to know I told George West of your mentioning him. He is very weak and feeble now and has people spend the night with him and a person who comes and cooks/cleans for him during the day. He can no longer get himself up from bed and has fallen at least four times. Each time he fell he was able to “buzz” me via phone from a dialer hanging around his neck. We now have a person who is there on Sunday’s when he had nobody present during the day. But he smiled and recalled you very well. I told him I would write you and let you know that you touched someone and brought a tender memory to his mind. Peace, Jack

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Book study
by Marianna Bailey 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

Hi All! > > > Want to join? > > --Here is WHAT: We are studying Sacred America, Sacred World: Fulfilling Our Mission in Service to All by Stephen Dinan (2016). Here’s how the book is described on Amazon: “Infused with visionary power, Sacred America, Sacred World is a manifesto for our country's evolution that is both political and deeply spiritual. It offers profound hope that America can grow beyond our current challenges and manifest our noblest destiny, which the book shows is rooted in sacred principles that transcend left or right political views.” Click here to see more and or purchase it. WATCH a video trailer for the book > > Here is a chart of the table of contents of the book. > > This week we are starting with a look at the first 2 chapters with a focus on Chapter 2: What is a Sacred America? Click here to see the 18 paragraphs of Chapter 2. > > > > What Is a Sacred America.docx > > > Here is WHEN: Each Tuesday (starting April 21st, 2020) for 1 hour -- at 9:00 pm Eastern (New York) time; 8:00 pm Central (Chicago) time; 7:00 pm Mountain (Denver) time; 6:00 Pacific (Los Angeles) time. 9:00 am in Taipei. > > --Here is HOW: Send an email to Marianna Bailey Her email is wmbailey(a)charter.net She will send you an invitation to the Zoom meeting we will be using > > If you are new to Zoom, watch this video to learn the steps to get from the invitation to the Zoom Meeting. > > If you are joining via computer: click the link and follow instructions. If you are joining by phone, use one of the numbers in the meeting invitation. > > Marianna and Jim Wiegel plan to be on the Zoom meeting 10-15 minutes ahead of time to help you participate. David Rebstock is going over the chapter to highlight parts and prepare some questions. > > Marianna Bailey > > Jim Wiegel > “That which consumes me is not man, nor the earth, nor the heavens, but the flame which consumes man, earth, and sky." Nikos Kazantzakis > > 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353 > 623-363-3277 > jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com > www.partnersinparticipation.com > > > On Monday, April 20, 2020, 12:37:23 PM MST, Marianna Bailey <wmbailey(a)charter.net> wrote: > > > Join Zoom Meeting > https://us02web.zoom.us/j/74985854970ji > > Meeting ID: 749 8585 4970 > One tap mobile > +13126266799,,74985854970# US (Chicago) > +16465588656,,74985854970# US (New York) > > Dial by your location > +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) > +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) > +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) > +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose) > +1 253 215 8782 US > +1 301 715 8592 US > Meeting ID: 749 8585 4970 > Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcvaRQJvuY > > > > > > Sent from my iPad

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History Shapers
by Dawn Collins 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

G&P Anybody interested in a side study into the history of the Knights Templar??? Kindfully yours, d P.S. Multi-tasking with a.m. news on MSNBC; don't you think Falci would make a good Surgeon General?? We love the Final Reality because the Penultimate Concern loved us first. - 1 John 4:19

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Joe Mathews Dissertation on John Wesley
by Wendell Refior 21 Apr '20

21 Apr '20

Colleagues - We now have a digital copy of JWM's Dissertation on Wesley. A Study of John Wesley, turned in and rejected by Niebuhr and never rewritten or approved. Wendell Refior for the ICA Global Archives Chapter 1: The Human Constitution https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21219.pdf Chapter 2: The Life of Love https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21220.pdf Chapter 3: The Knowledge of Faith https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21221.pdf Conclusion: Concluding Remarks https://wedgeblade.net/files/archives_assets/21222.pdf -- 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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Seeking your wisdom
by Mary Kurian D'Souza 20 Apr '20

20 Apr '20

Dear colleagues on the journey, I think our community development model is a critical dimension of our offering to society at this time after the Covid 19 pandemic dies down. I think the stake dynamic is a particularly important offering at this time. I am trying to figure out how we go about offering this . Mary

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Join the ICA Social Research Center Virtual Spring Gathering: May 10-13
by Karen Snyder 18 Apr '20

18 Apr '20

Dear Colleagues, The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted our world, including our desire to be the new reality of the ICA Social Research Center, housing the work of sixty years of EI/ICA archives. Everything now is changed and will be different in the future. We see ourselves in dialogue with what is happening in the world today while identifying our past- archived wisdom that may be informative to the present. We want to link with the many efforts to articulate a new story, a new paradigm that is emerging for our time From the comfort of your home and computer, you are invited to join with one or more of the collection teams during our virtual ICA Social Research Center Spring Gathering. Imagine two hour blocks of time on the collection(s) of your choice: Overall: What is going on in the world today in this area? What do we see emerging from our experiences of the past few months? Reviewing the collection: What questions are raised for you as we look at this collection? What are the gifts of this collection that will sustain and support the new which is being birthed? Beyond our past accomplishments, what did we learn that is informative to today? What additions and changes could be made to this collection for public understanding? ICA SOCIAL RESEARCH CENTER - VIRTUAL SPRING GATHERING May 10: Sunday May 11: Monday May 12: Tuesday May 13: Wednesday (same time) 4:00- 5:00 PM EST 3:00–4:00 PM CST 2:00–3:00 PM MST 1:00-2:00 PM PST Contexting the next three days STRUCTURAL REFORMULATION CONTEXTUAL RE-EDUCATION SPIRIT REMOTIVATION 1 Human Development Doug Druckenmiller ddruckin(a)gmail.com <mailto:ddruckin@gmail.com> 4 Imaginal Education Karen Snyder karen.snyder10(a)gmail.com <mailto:karen.snyder10@gmail.com> 8 Inner Life Jeanette Stanfield jstanfieldica(a)gmail.com <mailto:jstanfieldica@gmail.com> 2 Social Change Jim Wiegel jfwiegel(a)gmail.com <mailto:jfwiegel@gmail.com> 5 Facilitation Methods Beret Griffith beretgriffith(a)gmail.com <mailto:beretgriffith@gmail.com> 9 Spirit Movement Lynda Cock lyndacock(a)gmail.com <mailto:lyndacock@gmail.com> 3 Awakenment Forums OliveAnn Slotta oslotta(a)gmail.com <mailto:oslotta@gmail.com> 6 Collaborative Networking Nelson Stover nstover(a)emergingecology.org <mailto:nstover@emergingecology.org> Summary and Next Steps Daily time for joining the collection dialogues: Eastern Central Mountain Pacific 11:00 – 1:00 1:30 – 3:30 4:00 – 6:00 10:00 -12:00 12:30 - 2:30 3:00 - 5:00 9:00 – 11:00 11:30 – 1:30 2:00 – 4:00 8:00 -10:00 10:30 – 12:30 1:00 – 3:00 We invite you to join us for any or all of the collection dialogues May 10-13. Please contact one of the collection guides you wish to dialogue with to receive the link for being included. To review the website go to https://icaglobalarchives.org/wp-admin/profile.php <https://icaglobalarchives.org/wp-admin/profile.php>. Peace, The Social Research Center Team Lynda Cock, Doug Druckenmiller, Steve Ediger, Jack Gilles, Beret Griffith, Mary Laura Jones, Frank Knutson, Paul Noah, Wendell Refior, Oliveann Slotta, Karen Snyder, Jeanette Stanfield, Nelson Stover, Tim Wegner, Jim Wiegel

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Re: [Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 97, Issue 5
by Cheryl 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

Re: Final Meaning Witness I think it would be a fabulous gift to the world for OE/ICA folks to "reimagining the economic, political and cultural processes for the future" as Karen suggested. I agree with Judy Lindblad's comment and quote "As Governor Cuomo called out this week "this is a transformative experience, it is never going to be the same." There is going to be a new normal. These are the times and ... it would be a big task worth doing. Judy" Here is something I can contribute: https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/extinction-and-the-revolution-of-love/… Eisensein's thinking always causes me to think deeper - maybe it will help trigger a reaction and a response in the reimagination process. I am always grateful for the deep thinking and profound work of all of you who came long before me in the SPT thinking (I'm not much younger, but was busy doing other things). Your experimentation and reflections have provided ripples of impact in the world already.Thanks,Cheryl Kartes ToP Network Mpls, MN -----Original Message----- To: oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Sent: Fri, Apr 3, 2020 12:41 pm Subject: OE Digest, Vol 97, Issue 5 Today's Topics: 1. Re: Final Meaning witness (Karen Snyder) 2. Re: Final Meaning witness (Judy Lindblad) 3. Re: [Dialogue] Final Meaning witness (McCabe, Diann A) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2020 10:45:21 -0500 From: Karen Snyder <karen.snyder10(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Final Meaning witness The 1971 New Social Vehicle work was amazing. 77 proposals were written to imagine a new society. As I read proposal 2 on Final Meanings (below), I struggled with the language and decided to transpose it. While doing that, I found myself dreaming of the possibility of taking all 77 proposals and writing them for the next decade (I did not get to this step). Reading an article by Paul Mason (?The coronavirus crisis shows we need an entirely new economic system?) he calls for us to imagine it and make it happen. Rewriting the social process proposals could be a part of reimagining the economic, political and cultural processes for the future. Any takers? > On Apr 2, 2020, at 1:10 PM, James Wiegel via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > Thanks, Richard. Dipping into the Social Change collection of the ICA Social Research Center, see attached Proposal 2: Communal Wisdom: Final Meanings. -- the one referred to by Louise. > Here it is in google: Proposal 2 Final Meanings.pdf <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rbhiXE3wqlZXXmL-i_-93uBriVycBpIL/view?usp=…> > > Proposal 2 Final Meanings.pdf > <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rbhiXE3wqlZXXmL-i_-93uBriVycBpIL/view?usp=…> > Jim Wiegel <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123> > ?That which consumes me is not man, nor the earth, nor the heavens, but the flame which consumes man, earth, and sky." Nikos Kazantzakis > > 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353 > 623-363-3277 > jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com <mailto:marilyn.oyler@gmail.com> > www.partnersinparticipation.com <http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/> > Message: 2 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2020 12:43:35 -0400 From: Judy Lindblad <nj.lindblad(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Final Meaning witness Blessings be upon you Karen! Perhaps these times of shifted context and reduced usual activity might afford time to consider what it would take to rethink and update. As Governor Cuomo called out this week "this is a transformative experience, it is never going to be the same." There is going to be a new normal. These are the times and ... it would be a big task worth doing. Judy Message: 3 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2020 17:41:16 +0000 From: "McCabe, Diann A" <dm14(a)txstate.edu> We joined the order in late 1973 so much of what Louise writes about was unknown to us. Good to be reminded of the work that went on in those days of experimentation. Thank you for sharing.--Diann McCabe, SIP in San Marcos, TX ________________________________ From: Dialogue <dialogue-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of Richard Alton via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 9:53 AM Subject: [Dialogue] Final Meaning witness I just found this piece going through my files: I was Louise Singleton and her late husband John's Local Church prior and later worked a decade with her on the ICA USA's African ICAs HIV/AIDS work. A little long for a witness but what happens to one who spends a month working on final meanings on the Southside of Chicago. Amazing what we asked of people! Dick THE GROUND SHIFTS UNDER MY FEET SOUTH HOUSE ON BLUE ISLAND AVENUE, CHICAGO I am not sure what I expected when John and I and three others from Montview Presbyterian Church drove to Chicago to attend the Summer Research Assembly at the Ecumenical Institute (EI). It was July, 1971; John and I left four children eleven to three in the care of the Denver Religious House at 1741 Gaylord Street, a big old house that was the home and office of those who worked for the Ecumenical Institute in Denver. John, Paul Hamilton and Don Elliott planned to return to Denver after a short time, but Freda, Don?s wife, and I intended to stay four weeks. I had never been to Chicago and my children would spend those four weeks in a Religious House. I knew essentially nothing about this organization or what I would be doing. What could I have been thinking? The Kent State Massacre had shocked the world on May 4, 1970. The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers in mid-June, 1971. Protests against the Viet Nam War were strident. I had missed the up-endedness of the 60?s ? the rebellion against authority, free-form lifestyle, rejection of materialism, and discontented individualism. I had four children in the 60?s and to say that I was busy, distracted, and disconnected from the larger world is to understate the coziness of my cocoon. I ran into Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique in 1968 when I was pregnant with Will. I got a glimpse of how my wife and mother role had been meticulously nurtured into me in my Southern upbringing. Yes, I had gone to Boston to business school and happily worked for Polaroid for three years, but still I had no idea that I would want a career, work of my own in the world. I did not feel much responsibility for the world beyond my family and close community. John and I had encountered the Ecumenical Institute at a weekend seminar called RS-1 ? Religious Studies I. Its intention was to confront unexamined religious literalism with an intellectual and experiential grounding that had powerful ramifications for how you lived your life. The course focused on four major symbols of the Christian faith ? God, Christ, Holy Spirit, and Church. It used writings of four 20th century theologians, Rudolph Bultman, Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and R. Richard Niebuhr to blow open these well worn church concepts and the words that name them, and ground them in ordinary human experience. It sought to demythologize them and re-symbolize them again. To me, who had grown up in the unquestioned and unquestioning environment of the southern Presbyterian Church, this was radical and exciting stuff. The calling was to live an intentional life of service ? not to some reduced god, but to the whole world. This was not a Jesus Loves You, Y?all Come kind of th eology; it was insistent demand. Stop worrying about yourself and your soul. Get out there and bring new life to the world. Live your life. I had no idea what a month in Chicago would bring; I was clear there was an interesting world beyond my kitchen sink, and my unexamined life role. We arrived in Chicago at the Ecumenical Institute offices located in an old seminary on West Congress Parkway in the middle of a poor black, angry, rioting community. We were instructed not go on the street ? not because we might come to harm, but because there might be an incident which would damage EI?s work in 5th City, a community the Institute was working with to offer paths to change and a sense of hope where very little existed. The first shock was that those of us from Denver were split up and assigned to three different locations. A thousand people were expected to attend, so other buildings were co-opted. John and I were sent to a four story wooden building, an abandoned hotel with rooms around a central shaft on Blue Island Parkway. I have no idea where in Chicago it is because I only left the building to go to assemblies of the whole body once a week and I never walked outside the building. John was assigned to a men?s dorm and I was assigned to a women?s dorm on the 4th floor built around the four-story atrium. The building looked like a firetrap. My room containing bunk beds for six, opened on a hall at the top of this open shaft. I was out on the falling-off-the-wall back porch in tears because there was no way that a responsible mother of four would put herself in such danger. And I was beginning to understand about assignment: it equaled obedience. Charles Moore came along and asked what the problem was. I let him have it ? the danger, the negligence, etc, etc. He listened quietly and said wait. In a few minutes he was back with a new room assignment. John and I were assigned together to a small room off the porch on the second floor above the kitchen. I learned later it was his and Pat?s room. Living in a room with five other women would not have been easy, but I might have been less lonely than returning every evening to this small room off the second floor porch, above the kitchen and facing the tenements behind. John stayed for a week and returned to Denver. I knew no one ? no one to help make sense of the strange, continuously objectionable expectations in which the rules of engagement were different than any I had ever encountered. The Ecumenical Institute was a family secular order of people who had decided to live a life of radical service. Those who decided to join the Order Ecumenical lived by the ancient monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty meant receiving a stipend equal to the poverty level wherever one worked. In India, that could be $10 a month. Some people worked outside and their income supported those who staffed the work of the Institute. Chastity had to do with the Kierkegaardian idea of willing one thing. Your life was about the immediate work and intention of the larger group. Obedience was about accepting assignment. These three disciplines ? seriously observed ? came to me continuously as a shock and an affront. And yet, all these extremely bright, we ll-organized, compelling people had agreed to live like this. And seemed to think it the most important thing they had every done. And the most important thing I might do. The task for the month was to create the New Social Vehicle. EI expected nothing less than to participate in transforming the world. Huge white banners hanging across the front of the assembly hall read, All the past belongs to all the people. All the wisdom belongs to all the people. All the goods belong to all the people. All the decisions belong to all the people. I wondered if this would show up in my FBI file although it seemed unlikely I had an FBI file. It had not been so long since the days of the McCarthy Hearings; I could believe association with this organization might be hazardous. I also felt an underlying implication that my usual role of wife and mother was inadequate: I needed to commit myself to renewing the local church and helping to re-create the institutions of society to care for all. The day began with Daily Office at 6 am. Wake up call was someone with a gong outside the door shouting Praise the Lord Christ is Risen, to which we were to respond, He is risen indeed as we rolled joyfully out of bed. I was assigned to a working group of about thirty people, which would be home base for the four weeks. We met morning and afternoon, breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Research Assembly of a thousand people gathered staff from all over the country and a few from overseas, plus volunteers and new recruits like us. The purpose of the summer?s research was to figure out what was needed to transform civil society and create the practical programs that those under assignment would implement in the coming year to help bring that about. During the working year those under assignment would apply the thinking and programmatic actions wherever they were assigned, and come back the next summer for another assembly to assess what worked and create the organization?s work for the fol lowing year. It was a kind of practical research. It was an astounding operation, better seen from a bird?s eye view than from a hard chair in a working group in the steamy summer heat of Chicago. My bottom developed blisters. The task for that summer assembly was to define the dynamics that occur in any society. It would be used as a tool for understanding and analyzing what the tyrannizing and collapsing social forces were in current realities that need to be corrected. When economic, political, and cultural dynamics are in balance, the New Social Vehicle could emerge. Staff had read 1000 edge books over the last year, trying to discern what was happening in communities in the chaotic time of the ?60?s and beginning of the ?70?s. [page3image3330531104] Typical of ICA methodology, the task for the third of the assembly meeting at South House was to define the Cultural Commonality in The Social Process triangles. The other two locations would describe Economic and Political Commonalities. Those in south House were asked to figure out what concretely was meant and went on in Communal Wisdom, Communal Styles and Communal Symbols? My working group was assigned Final Meanings under Communal Wisdom. This task required a great deal of brainstorming, discussion, and corporate writing. It is difficult to explain and define the very medium in which you live and operate. As someone said, does a fish know what water is? Corporate writing was a new experience. Three or four people work together to write, getting their wisdom on paper in a process of suggestion and negotiation which can be both long and infuriatingly difficult, particularly if you are defining something called Final Meanings. The day?s work was sent to Room E where leadership decided what the next step would be the following day. This was an evolving process. I was totally disconnected from home, seeming to forget my children for days at a time; I was trying to survive and to contribute; my days were contained as if on an unknown island. There were no computers, cell phones, newspapers or even telephones for general use. Someone reported the news of the day at breakfast. There was a quiet time after lunch when I took my journal and incense to an assigned place and thought deep thoughts. Singing and Psalm conversations were intended to keep spirits up and intention focused on the task. There were regular reporting dynamics with a weekly assembly of the entire gathering and some planned activities or ?discontinuity.? Singing by the whole body when they gathered 1000 strong in assembly was without accompaniment ? and earthmoving. The primary songs I remember were the hymns For I Know Whom I have Believed, Amazing Grace, The Lord of the Dance, and Why O Lord, Hast Thou Quite Forsaken Me, Those Who Wait on the Lord, and secular songs like Blue Skies and I Don?t Know Why I Love You Like I Do. People wrote visionary words to popular tunes such as On a Clear Day and the Sound of Silence. The nuts and bolts of the assembly were directed by staff and carried out by participants as assigned ? to the kitchen, cleaning, print shop, and typing. John worked in the boiler room in the grungy basement. To load coal into the boiler, it was necessary to load it into a wheelbarrow and push the wheelbarrow up a six- inch plank to reach the boiler. One night on breakfast prep, I broke 300 eggs to prepare scrambled eggs. I was instructed to break them two at a time ? one in each hand; breakfast prep was just beginning. Showers and toilet facilities were barely adequate and tended to verge on collapse. Documents were printed at the print shop and then collated by laying out stacks of each page in order and the entire body of people passed by in a line assembling their document ? usually while singing. I anticipated that Bill Hudson, who had left the Order and was a minister at Montview Church, would arrive for the second two weeks. He had gotten me into this, and maybe he could help me understand why it was important for me to be there. I was in a school gymnasium as part of a typing crew on Friday night when the phone rang. I heard the person who answered say that it was too bad that someone had died. I found out that Bill had had a heart attack and died the day before. He would not be coming to Chicago, to South House. Bill had left the Order; people did not leave the Order. No one knew at that point how the Order should deal with an ex-Order member who died, so his death was mostly ignored: he had left the Order; he had refused to live his life. I am not overly given to tears, but I think that summer I cried about every day. I still do not know why I did not go home. I expect a few people thought up a good reason why they were required to be someplace else. My prior (as in the head of a monastery), the leader of my working group was that same Charles Moore who rescued us from the back porch. It is hard to describe Charles. Like many other people in the Order, he was a preacher who decided that this was a far more interesting and significant thing to do with his life than working in the desert of the local parish. He lived in the depth of the spirit ? close to the Dark Night of the Soul. And he could make you believe you belonged there too. I could not imagine telling him this work was not important and I would not be part of it. That?s what a prior is: they keep you pointed in the direction you choose for your life, willing one thing and being obedient. I had chosen to be there. When Summer ?71 ended, Paul Hamilton?s son Cap, and I drove home from Chicago to Denver. We talked all night, and by the time w e drove in I-70 out of Limon into the Denver morning, I understood a lot more about what had happened to me. I could think about it and not just respond emotionally. I would not just go home, pick up my abandoned children, and return to life as usual. I understood that I had now assumed Care for the World ? a burden that would never leave me. I did not join the Order, although I often thought about it. I had a husband with little interest and four children. And I am not sure I could have been sufficiently obedient, willing-one-thing, and detached from this world?s goods to have been a satisfactory member of the Order. Research and working in local communities was also changing the organization. At the 1972 Summer Research Assembly, they emerged from the dark night of the soul and waltzed. I couldn?t believe the reports of what a fine time people had. The decision was also made to make the Turn to the World. The assessment was made that major change in our time would not happen through the local church, but through secular society. Soon after, the Ecumenical Institute became the Institute of Cultural Affairs, because major change in the world would come from change in the cultural dimension of society. Human Development Projects were born and established on every continent in every time zone where local people learned skills to ?develop? their community ? human devopment. As ICA worked in communities with every religion, the intent was not to convert people but to find the [page5image3331086800] ICA Meeting, Chicago transparent life-giving word in their religion. I particularly appreciated the EI/ICA intention to create and define frameworks to use in thinking about things. My favorite is Knowing/Doing/Being. Although I wrote many history exams on the economic, political, and cultural backgrounds of an issue, how those interacted with each other were not as clear until I worked with the Social Process Triangles. The Global Grid gives a new way to imagine the world. And of course, there is Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Over the years, I volunteered in many activities, beckoned by the opportunity to work with unusually committed people who could see past the immediacy of the moment to the possibility of actually changing the world to one in which people ? particularly the poorest of the poor--took hold of what they wanted for their future and worked to make that happen. The work opened my life to the world. John and I were part of a ?cadre? at Montview Church, one of four churches in the Denver/Boulder area involved in the Local Church Experiment to renew our churches. We were instrumental in hiring Ken Barley who with Zoe had just left the Order, to replace Bill Hudson. He took the leadership role in changing Montview from a senior ministry model to a corporate ministry organization. In 1976, I assisted with town meetings in the nation-wide Town Meeting Project. It was a massive project--at least one was organized in every county across the country--as a way to raise the consciousness of residents to the possibility of new life in their community. In 1978, I visited development projects in India, Malaysia. and Indonesia while we were on sabbatical in Oxford, glimpsing first hand for the first time the enormity, richness, and need of the world. I helped organize local development projects in Colorado to attend the Global Exhibition of Development Projects in Bombay in 1984, and spent ab out four weeks there, helping to set up the conference, leading a group on a field trip to northern India, and traveling for a week after the conference ended. The Order: Ecumenical went out of existence in 1986 and the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) became a professional non-profit organization working with organizations and communities in the US and abroad. They developed, taught, and used facilitation and planning methods called the Technology of Participation or TOPTM. I joined the ICA Board in 1995, became president in 1998, and coordinator of the 2000 ICA International Conference held in Denver at Denver University, attended by 650 people, one-third of whom came from outside the US. Forty years ago, the Kemper Insurance Company sold their office building to ICA for $1.00. An eight-story building at North Sheridan Road and Lawrence Avenue, it is located in Uptown, north of Chicago downtown, between the commuter rail and Lake Michigan. Uptown is a low-income area with very diverse population. The Kemper Building became ICA: USA headquarters and a center for Uptown community services. There are ICA offices on the sixth floor, a conference center on the 7th floor and a community and guest rooms on the 8th floor. The rest of the building is leased to community service organizations including a health clinic, Chicago Social Services and various immigrant and other support services. On [page6image3331648272] Sunday music from African congregation services fill the 2nd floor. Particularly during the years I was on the Board, I was there frequently, staying in a guest room with the bathroom down the hall, eating meals in the dining room on the 6th floor and listening to the traffic and sirens that filled the night. I would fly into O?Hare, take the train to Jefferson and catch the Lawrence Avenue bus that stopped right on the corner of Sheridan. It was about a half hour ride through neighborhood after neighborhood, each a different nationality with its own ethnic flavor. That eye-opening ride was preparation for entering that building and the work that goes on there. For many ICA people, it is a place to return to, to see colleagues, work on project, maintain the archives, and touch base. It was a home I shared with many others. Over the last few years it is being turned into a green building modeling energy conservation and sustainability. In 2012 ICA participated in and was an organizing leader in Chicago?s Accelerate 77, which stands for Accelerating Green Initiatives in Chicago's 77 Community Areas. The building also has a new name: GreenRise Building Uptown. At the ICA International Conference in Denver in 2000, called the Millennium Connection, there was concern about the threat of HIV/AIDS to development in Africa. African staff were overwhelmed by their experience of HIV. People were dying and AIDS was decimating communities. At that time, the HIV rate in Zimbabwe was 26% and 16.2% in Zambia. Every family had at least one person sick and dying. In 2001, I joined several colleagues to develop and implement the African HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative. That work called on everything I had learned in public health and years of ICA and life experience. I had the opportunity to work with committed colleagues in the US, Canada, and the UK, but most importantly I worked in Africa with African staff and on the ground with rural villagers. I experienced the great pleasure of working with colleagues in a common and significant enterprise. What had often seemed like living my life in parallel universes finally came together. In the previous thirty years, I had many friends and colleagues in Denver who knew of and worked with ICA. Denver had had a Religious House with ICA staff and many in Montview Church were active or aware of ICA. But most people in my day-to-day life were not involved. I often felt ICA was too strange to be understood by my ?normal? establishment friends and family. If you hadn?t been there, how would it make sense? ICA always claimed that it was not dis-establishment but trans-establishment ? between the no longer and the not yet. I felt my experience was far outside that of most people, hard to explain, and hard for friends and family to grasp. The ICA African HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative was something everyone could understand and support. Without funding of Denver friends, Montview Church, and the sponsorship of funds from several Denver and Boulder Rotary Clubs, we would have had a difficult time launching the Initiative in eight countries in Africa. Working in eight countries was possible only because [page7image3332124816] of the network of self-governing country ICA?s with local staff trained to lead Human Development Projects since the early 70?s. They were local community revolutionaries in their countries. Assisting those staff to address HIV prevention and management, as an integral part of their development work was our goal. This would become my work for the next decade and beyond. ICA as an organization is working as a professional non-profit organization in an establishment world and it is not easy. It has not yet learned to be a reliable beneficiary of funding organizations. The commitment of those from the next generation is needed to continue vigorous work as those involved since the ?70?s retire and die. It is difficult to inspire young people to take up poverty, chastity and obedience ? but I know from experience that that is what will be required to move to the New Social Vehicle, which seems less attainable and more essential with every newspaper report. 2012 was the 50th anniversary of this organization. Using the social process triangles, it is clear that the economic process is the tyrannizing force with the political as ally. The cultural dimension is collapsed, divided into sides, each unwilling to even talk about common values ? those final meanings. The Occupy Movement had a glimpse of this, but did not know how to build that new social vehicle. It is the task for the next twenty years to figure out how to live in community that has changed radically at every level?local, national and global--since 1971, but still seeks the same human benefits. I am one of the people who want to make that happen. The blessings upon my life by my work, my colleagues, and association with this remarkable organization ? this global home ? have been beyond measure. Written as part of a memoir, Between Earth and Sky, self-published in 2015 ICA Global Citizen ?1987 -- Richard H. T. Alton One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF) Green Community Connections Interfaith Green Network T: 773.344.7172 richard.alton(a)gmail.com<mailto:richard.alton@gmail.com> *Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oneear…> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2 Won't you be my neighbor? End of OE Digest, Vol 97, Issue 5 *********************************

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4/16/20, Progressing Spirit: Brian McLaren: What Should We Be Learning in the Time of COVID-19?; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

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.yiv6973172984mcnTextContent, #yiv6973172984 #yiv6973172984templateHeader .yiv6973172984mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6973172984 #yiv6973172984templateBody .yiv6973172984mcnTextContent, #yiv6973172984 #yiv6973172984templateBody .yiv6973172984mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv6973172984 #yiv6973172984templateFooter .yiv6973172984mcnTextContent, #yiv6973172984 #yiv6973172984templateFooter .yiv6973172984mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | What Should We Be Learning in the Time of COVID-19? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Brian McLaren April 16, 2020 When all of my speaking engagements got cancelled in early March, I remember feeling a certain relief. “Wow,” I said to myself, “I could use a rest.” As it turns out, I have been even busier than I would have been otherwise because every organization and network I’m part of has become even more active than before as we respond to a surge in requests for help in coping with the COVID-19 crisis. Many of us are part of this veritable laptop army of peace and goodness activists. COVID is putting high demands on all of us, including … Health care professionals, essential store and service workers, and many others who risk their own health every day to show up, protect the vulnerable, help the infected, and serve the common good. Moms and/or dads having to work from home while caring for and homeschooling their kids — too much for anyone to handle! People with special vulnerability to the virus who must take extra precautions and deal with the real threat to their survival. People who have lost loved ones, are losing loved ones, or are caring for loved ones who are sick. People who have lost their jobs, or who were unemployed or underemployed before this crisis began. People whose income depends on people coming together for concerts, plays, movies, meals, and liturgies. People who struggle with anxiety in the best of times, who now are barely able to make it from one minute to another. With all the added stress, it’s easy for us to miss the lessons and opportunities this moment can offer us. That’s why I’m always trying to keep one ear open to the voice of the Spirit, either in my own heart or in the heartfelt poetry and prose of others. You may have heard the saying, “In the school of life, first you take the test and then you learn the lesson.” I’d like to learn the lesson during this test, and not have to repeat anything like it again. Of many lessons we can learn, here’s one that I feel is of primary importance: we can’t return to the old normal. Yes, the old normal was better for most of us than the current situation: having jobs, having a routine, having an in-person social life, having income, not fearing for the welfare of our parents - or ourselves, being free to travel, etc., etc. But there was more wrong with the old normal than we realized. For one thing, it left us vulnerable to pandemics like COVID-19. Our leaders were too focused on other dangers to take this one as seriously as they should have, even though experts were sounding the alarm. For another, it provided quality health care for a few, mediocre health care for many, and little or no health care for most. Now, it turns out, the richest of the rich are at the mercy of viruses that spread among the rest of us. On top of that, it invested trillions of dollars in weapons that injure and kill, while investing too little in institutions and services that promote and protect health. In addition, the old normal was framed by deeply embedded systems of white supremacy and oligarchy, leaving so many outside and behind. Beyond all that, the old normal was unsustainable because of its baseline of harm to the planet we all share. And to mention just one more, in the old normal, too many people acted as if lines on a map could protect us from our greatest dangers. The old normal was based on a lie: that we are all islands, little monads of self-reliant self-interest, living in an economy that will protect us from all evil if we just work hard enough and make enough money. In this lie, our survival depends on self-interest. We can’t afford to return to that lie. In the new normal that we can create together, we can lean into a truth that we are all learning in our bones thanks to this crisis: we are all connected, participants in local, regional, and global societies, living in an ecosystem that requires us to seek the common good with one another and with all our fellow creatures. Or to put it more simply: our survival depends on love, on mutual concern, on being our brother and sister’s keeper, on a common commitment to the common good. This is exactly the logic that I see in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 - 7. At the heart of this moral masterpiece, Jesus tells his followers to stop imitating the empire-builders (i.e. the Gentiles, meaning the Romans who are occupying their land like a human pandemic). Instead, Jesus says to imitate the flocks of birds flying by overhead and the wildflowers swaying in the meadow nearby. In other words, he tells us all to take this opportunity to defect from the status quo of our society and its social and economic systems. He tells us to transfer our trust to the natural ecosystem of God, to rejoin the larger system of the divine economy which he calls the kingdom or empire or commonwealth of God. This new reality could become the new normal, he said, if we would just be willing to repent (or rethink everything) and believe. In this new normal, rather than seeking first food, clothing, and shelter for ourselves as anxious individuals, we seek first the common good (what Jesus calls “the commonwealth and justice of God” in 6:33). Without the common good, nothing will go sustainably right, and with it, there will be enough for all. In the coming days, I know we all will miss “the good old days” of normalcy before the quarantine. And there will be many good reasons to feel this nostalgia. But nostalgia is not a good survival strategy. When we feel exasperation about the present, rather than wishing for the past, what if we did something a little more creative? What if we imagined how the new economy we build after the current and coming chaos could be truly new and better, not just a return to the same-old same-old? What if we take serious stock of the failures of our current governments and leaders, not just to hold individuals and parties to account for their failures (which, no doubt, must be done to a degree), but more, to imagine what kind of systemic changes could be initiated that make more sense in a world like ours? What if we admit that our current approaches to health care aren’t working, and start imagining creating a new and better system that makes sense for the reality of a globally connected world? What if we opened the way for a new approach to church — to imagine what kind of church we need for the world of tomorrow, just as our founders and reformers did in past centuries? What if we threw out the old conservative notion that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem,” along with the old more liberal notion that “government alone is the solution” — and instead, imagined a new normal where government plays a pivotal role along with every other human institution in not just remembering the past and governing for the present, but also in preparing for the future, including the inevitability of climate change and our need to flatten the curve before it’s too late? Those are just a few dimensions of the old normal that we must leave behind and the new normal that we must create together. Of course, in the coming weeks and months, many of us will simply have our hands full surviving. But in the midst of surviving, we can nurture a vision for the future we are surviving for. ~ Brian McLaren Read online here About the Author Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent joint project is an illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story. Other recent books include: The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World). Brian is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings – across the US and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Tikkun, Worship Leader, and Conversations and is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, he has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline, On Being, and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. His work has also been covered in Time, New York Times, Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and many other print and online media. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Kim How does a Christian who thinks she is on the Spiritual/Interfaith path – evolving, becoming, opening evermore – deal with the death of a loved one rooted in “traditional” Christian ideas about The Afterlife? I find myself desperately hoping there is a physical Heaven – a childhood concept that I thought I had moved beyond; because I want to hold Dad’s hand again someday, and I want to believe he is with my cousin and dear friends who have died. It suddenly feels more secure and yet non-existent. I am surprised, saddened, and grieving (thank goodness). A: By Kevin G. Thew Forrester, PhD Dear Kim, I feel the sadness, perhaps connected to a sense of loss, in your questions. Isn’t it amazing that we can “think” we are on a path and want to “believe” something, but our heart and body are in other places? The path we are actually on is the one we are experiencing in our body. And this is neither right nor wrong. It simply is what is. Neurologically we now know that for all the signals sent from the neurons in our head down to our body, that number is dwarfed by the stream of neurological traffic upwards from the body to the head. In other words, it is a losing battle, and it does indeed feel like a battle, to convince our heart and body that reality is different than our experience. You are on a Spiritual/Interfaith path, which is richer and more mysterious than our mind can conceive. Where I invite you to begin is with your experience of sadness and loss. This experience is much more than a thought – it is sacred and fertile ground for you. Begin with where you experience the sadness/loss in your body. Follow that thread of your experience, by sensing/feeling into it. For example, you might discover that there is tightness in your solar plexus. The head will want to solve and judge and categorize. But practice being curious. Honor your not knowing. Practice simply honoring and holding. See where your soulful-attention is led; that is what I mean by following the thread of your experience. Respect, also, your sense of want, honor it, and sense into its origin in your experience. Let your mind drop down into your heart and body and be guided by your heart-centered curious inquiry. This takes courage, for you will move in, through, and beyond beliefs which are held out of fear. And oddly, “hope” often takes us away from our present experience and trusting in that experience to teach and guide us. Holy Hope is the realization that in the Present, which is the Reign of God, there is present what you need. In this spiritual practice you won’t be egoically vanquishing fear, or getting what you want; you won’t be trying to stake out a position ahead of time. What you will be doing is trusting your own experience and touching what it is your soul is longing for. Who knows what you will discover as you courageously trust? Perhaps there will be the realization that there is already a connection with your Dad that is deeper and sweeter than anything your mind might imagine. ~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, PhD Read and share online here About the Author Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of St. Paul’s Church in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including I Have Called You Friends, Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms, and My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You and Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland. Visit Kevin’s Blog: Essential Living: For The Soul’s Journey. | | | | | | | | 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! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Galilee: The True Origins of the Jesus Story Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong May 28, 2009 I spent several days recently in the region of Israel called Galilee. Contrary to what most people might expect I found my time in Galilee to be far more authentic than my time in Jerusalem. I actually wondered why, for it seemed counterintuitive. Seeking an answer to this question, I plunged into a brief study of the relationship between Jerusalem and Galilee in the Jesus story and in the history of the Jewish people. The Jewish nation has always been divided into two competing parts. Throughout history they have been called by a variety of names: the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom, Galilee and Judea, and Samaria and Jerusalem. Even Jewish mythology found in the book of Genesis recognized the division and sought to explain it by suggesting that the patriarch Jacob, who according to the tradition was the father of twelve sons who formed the twelve tribes of Israel, had two principle wives, both of whom were the daughters of a man named Laban. According to this biblical narrative Jacob loved Rachel and agreed to work for Laban for seven years to receive her hand in marriage. Laban, however, veiled his older daughter Leah and tricked Jacob into marrying her instead, arguing rather lamely that it was not proper for the younger daughter to be married prior to the older one. Jacob was then allowed to marry Rachel as his second wife by agreeing to give Laban seven more years of labor for that privilege. This story was clearly written by those sympathetic to Rachel since it always portrayed her as beautiful, while Leah was described in rather unflattering ways (she was said to have had eyes like a cow). Leah, however, bore Jacob a number of sons, which in that culture was supposed to have given her great status, while Rachel had trouble conceiving, having only one son, Joseph, before dying in childbirth with her second and Jacob’s last child, Joseph’s only full brother, named Benjamin. One of Leah’s sons was named Judah and his descendents became the dominant tribe that settled in the South. Jerusalem was in the land of Judah, which meant that the Temple was also there. The land of Judah was ruled by kings who were the descendents of King David, Judah’s most distinguished son. Rachel was the mother of Joseph, whose descendents populated the Northern Kingdom. As the son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Joseph is portrayed in the Genesis story as the favorite son and Jacob acted this out by making for him a coat of many colors. So it was that the mythology of the Jews located the traditional animosity between the two regions of Israel in the fact that their ancient patriarchs had not been full, but half brothers and that there had always been tension between the two. This is seen most poignantly in this biblical narrative when Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, an act which Judah instigated and from which he agreed to receive money for ridding their world of their irritating brother. When the tenuous unity of the Jewish nation was finally destroyed following the reign of Solomon about the year 920 BCE, the division was along this ancient fault line. When Solomon’s son Rehoboam succeeded to the throne in Jerusalem after Solomon’s death he faced immediately a rebellion in the North. Under the leadership of a military general named Jeroboam, demands for the redressing of Northern grievances were made to King Rehoboam, who refused to accede on any point. The people of the North declared themselves to be independent, and by making Jeroboam their king sought to create a new royal family as they seceded from the South. The two new competing entities were Judah, or the Southern Kingdom, organized around the city of Jerusalem, the Temple and the throne of David, and Israel, known as the Northern Kingdom, organized around Galilee, the ancient shrine of Bethel and the new capital city that when built would be called Samaria. The Northern Kingdom lasted from its birth around 920 to 721 BCE, when it was defeated by the Assyrians and its people were carried off into captivity. Without a long history and established institutions they lacked cohesiveness and finally disappeared through intermarriage, becoming part of the DNA of the Middle East, never to be heard from again. They are known today as the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.” The Southern Kingdom continued about 140 years longer than the North, from 920 to 586 BCE, when they were defeated by the Babylonians. Jerusalem and its Temple were both destroyed, and the people were carried off into captivity in the land of Babylon. These conquered Judeans, however, were possessed of a deeper sense of both purpose and unity and so they managed to keep themselves separate from their captors. They did this by being different. They observed the Sabbath every seventh day by refusing to work, they ate only kosher food prepared in a kosher kitchen and by reviving the act of circumcision they put the mark of Judaism quite literally on the body of every Jewish male. These things were all designed to make intermarriage difficult and to keep themselves separate. They were thus able subsequently to return home several generations later to reclaim their land and ultimately to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. By the time of the New Testament the remnant of the Northern Kingdom was called both Galilee and Samaria. These were generally looked down on as racially compromised regions. The remnant of the Southern Kingdom was called Judea and Judea became so dominant that the word “Jew” became the name by which all of the Hebrew people were identified. Jesus was, however, a product of Galilee. He was clearly identified with the village of Nazareth. In all probability that was the place of his birth. His ministry was carried out on and around the Sea of Galilee, a 13.5-mile-long and 7-mile-wide lake, sometimes called the Sea of Gennesaret, and in modern Israel known as Kinneret, and in such well known biblical towns near that lake as Tiberius, Bethsaida, Capernaum and Gedara. To visit these places today is to experience the physical setting that is not dissimilar from the way it was in Jesus’ day. The tourist industry has not yet wrecked the authentic imprint of Jesus. I arrived in Galilee the week before Easter and in Nazareth itself on Easter Sunday. It is a hilly town, not impressive then or now. It is easy to understand how Jesus’ origins there were something of an embarrassment. The New Testament even proclaims, “Nothing good can come out of Nazareth.” This negativity toward Nazareth and Galilee surely caused early Christians to develop the tales of his birth in the nobler town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. This regional negativity also caused the story of the resurrection to be moved from Galilee to Jerusalem. The earliest sources in the Bible, Paul, Mark and Matthew, suggest that it was in Galilee that the experience of resurrection emerged. By the time the later gospels, Luke and John, were written Jerusalem had replaced Galilee as the center of the resurrection appearance stories and still later of the ascension and the Pentecost story. Even here, however, there are hints of a Galilean original behind the developed Jerusalem narratives. Luke goes so far as to have Jesus command the disciples not to return to Galilee, thus suppressing Christianity’s Galilean origins. In John the primacy of the Jerusalem tradition is also undermined by what is portrayed as a later Galilean story that is found in the epilogue or final chapter of John’s Gospel. Following the developed narrative of Thomas feeling the nail prints in Jesus’ body in a Jerusalem setting comes this much more primitive Galilean story, in which the disciples have returned home, still in grief, only to experience Jesus alive by the Sea of Galilee. They have a meal together by that lake and then Peter is restored following his threefold denial of Jesus. Time after time the authenticity of the Galilean origins of the Jesus story is affirmed, even though hidden in the gospel tradition. It was this authenticity of Galilee that I sensed and enjoyed the most while in the land of Israel. The terrain is rugged. Jesus and the disciples had to be strong physically. Their journeys through the towns and villages of Galilee were through a physically demanding countryside. The gentle Jesus of Sunday School fame, portrayed as sitting on a hillside inviting the little children to “come unto me,” is not the portrait that emerges in Galilee. The idea that Joseph could have taken his wife, who was described in Luke as “great with child,” on an almost 100-mile journey from Nazareth either by foot or by donkey so that the messiah could be born in Bethlehem stretches credibility beyond the breaking point when one sees the land of Galilee. Galilee was also a hotbed of resistance to the yoke of Rome. Its hills gave Jewish guerilla fighters the protective lair they needed to carry out their hit and run attacks on the legions of Rome. Was Jesus’ disciple band involved in these guerilla activities? That too is a source of much speculation. We do know from several references that the disciples of Jesus were armed. Jesus has to order them to put up their swords. We know that one of them was called “the Zealot,” which was the name of the resistance fighters. We believe that the word Iscariot comes from “Sicarii,” the name of a militant revolutionary group. These are the things that have compelled contemporary scholars to lean more and more in this startling direction. In any event, if you wish to have some sense of the Jesus of history, it is to Galilee, not Jerusalem or Bethlehem, that you will go. Galilee is the province that shaped Jesus of Nazareth. The story of Jesus is drawn into the Jerusalem orbit by the power of that city and by the negativity of the Jewish people toward Galilee in the first century. As the Bible tells the Jesus story, however, his Galilean roots and Christianity’s Galilean origins become obvious. My journey to Israel helped me to recover and reinforce those roots. I commend Galilee to you. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Wild Luminaries Webinar Series Starting May 5, 2020 through February 2, 2021, you are invited to journey virtually through zoom conferencing for this unique Wild Luminaries Webinar Series, featuring eleven of the top eco-theologians in the Western world. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Re: [Oe List ...] Marianna Bailey invited you to “Marianna Bailey's Zoom Meeting”.
by Patricia Tuecke 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

That's 2:00am PDT!! 4:00 am meetings were doable, if not desired, in my 30's. 2:00 am meetings in my 80's, not so much.🤔. Thanks for the invite. A unique happening, I'm sure. Pat On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 2:30 PM mary hampton via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > Is this real? Topic? Why 5 am?? > > Inquiring minds want to know. > > mary > > > > Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for > Windows 10 > > > > *From: *Sarah H. Buss via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > *Sent: *Wednesday, April 15, 2020 6:40 AM > *To: *wmbailey(a)charter.net; Order Ecumenical Community > <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> > *Cc: *Sarah H. Buss <shbuss(a)mac.com> > *Subject: *Re: [Oe List ...] Marianna Bailey invited you to “Marianna > Bailey's Zoom Meeting”. > > > > What is this regarding, topic? > > Sent from my iPhone > > > > On Apr 14, 2020, at 9:27 PM, Marianna Bailey via OE < > oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > > > > Marianna Bailey invited you to “Marianna Bailey's Zoom Meeting”. > > when > > Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 5:00 AM EDT - 9:00 AM EDT > > Repeating event. > > invitees > > and you. > See replies… > <https://www.icloud.com/calendar/eventreply/?t=2_GEZTKOJXGM4TMNJTGEZTKOJXGMQ…> > > Accept > > > > Decline > > > > Maybe > > Don’t recognize this sender? Report Junk. > <https://www.icloud.com/report_junk/?type=event-invite&blob=AUzi061llE1R%2Ff…> > > > > iCloud is a service provided by Apple. > Apple ID <https://appleid.apple.com/choose-your-country/>| Support > <https://www.apple.com/support/icloud/ww>| Terms and Conditions > <https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/ww/>| Privacy > Policy <https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/privacy/> > Copyright © 2020 Apple Inc. One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, CA 95014 USA > <#m_6833180830176223641_address>. All rights reserved. > > <iCal-2020321.ics> > > _______________________________________________ > 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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ICA Social Research Center Virtual Spring Gathering May 10-13, 2020
by Lynda C 16 Apr '20

16 Apr '20

ICA Social Research Center Virtual Spring Gathering: May 10-13, 2020 Dear Colleagues, (Please do not reply directly to this list. See below.) April 16, 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted our world, including our desire to be the new reality of the ICA Social Research Center, housing the work of sixty years of EI/ICA archives. Everything now is changed and will be different in the future. We see ourselves in dialogue with what is happening in the world today while identifying our past- archived wisdom that may be informative to the present. We want to link with the many efforts to articulate a new story, a new paradigm that is emerging for our time From the comfort of your home and computer, you are invited to join with one or more of the collection teams during our virtual ICA Social Research Center Spring Gathering. Imagine two hour blocks of time on the collection(s) of your choice: • Overall: What is going on in the world today in this area? What do we see emerging from our experiences of the past few months? • Reviewing the collection: What questions are raised for you as we look at this collection? What are the gifts of this collection that will sustain and support the new which is being birthed? Beyond our past accomplishments, what did we learn that is informative to today? What additions and changes could be made to this collection for public understanding? ICA SOCIAL RESEARCH CENTER - VIRTUAL SPRING GATHERING May 10: Sunday May 11: Monday May 12: Tuesday May 13: Wednesday (same time) 4:00- 5:00 PM EST 3:00–4:00 PM CST 2:00–3:00 PM MST 1:00-2:00 PM PST Contexting the next three days STRUCTURAL REFORMULATION CONTEXTUAL RE-EDUCATION SPIRIT REMOTIVATION 1 Human Development Doug Druckenmiller ddrucken(a)gmail.com<mailto:ddruckin@gmail.com> 4 Imaginal Education Karen Snyder karen.snyder10(a)gmail.com<mailto:karen.snyder10@gmail.com> 8 Inner Life Jeanette Stanfield jstanfieldica(a)gmail.com<mailto:jstanfieldica@gmail.com> 2 Social Change Jim Wiegel jfwiegel(a)gmail.com<mailto:jfwiegel@gmail.com> 5 Facilitation Methods Beret Griffith beretgriffith(a)gmail.com<mailto:beretgriffith@gmail.com> 9 Spirit Movement Lynda Cock lyndacock(a)gmail.com<mailto:lyndacock@gmail.com> 3 Awakenment Forums OliveAnn Slotta oslotta(a)gmail.com<mailto:oslotta@gmail.com> 6 Collaborative Networking Nelson Stover nstover(a)emergingecology.org<mailto:nstover@emergingecology.org> Summary and Next Steps Daily time for joining the collection dialogues: Eastern Central Mountain Pacific 11:00 – 1:00 1:30 – 3:30 4:00 – 6:00 10:00 -12:00 12:30 - 2:30 3:00 - 5:00 9:00 – 11:00 11:30 – 1:30 2:00 – 4:00 8:00 -10:00 10:30 – 12:30 1:00 – 3:00 We invite you to join us for any or all of the collection dialogues May 10-13. Please contact one of the collection guides you wish to dialogue with to receive the link for being included Please do not reply to entire list serve. CC: Beret Griffith To review the website go to https://icaglobalarchives.org/ Peace, The Social Research Center Team Lynda Cock, Doug Druckenmiller, Steve Ediger, Jack Gilles, Beret Griffith, Mary Laura Jones, Frank Knutson, Paul Noah, Wendell Refior, Oliveann Slotta, Karen Snyder, Jeanette Stanfield, Nelson Stover, Tim Wegner, Jim Wiegel.

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