November 2022 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

FW: Celebration of life for John Weir Singleton, 1931-2020
by Lynda C 05 Nov '24

05 Nov '24

From: Rob Singleton <rob.singleton(a)hsc.utah.edu> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 3:51 PM To: Rob Singleton <rob.singleton(a)hsc.utah.edu> Subject: Celebration of life for John Weir Singleton, 1931-2020 This email is sent on behalf of Louise Singleton- Dear Family and Friends, We plan a virtual Gathering of Gratitude to celebrate the life of John Singleton on August 8 at 11:00 a.m. MDT. The celebration will consist of a service and, after a five minute break, a virtual reception. Details of the service and instructions for how you can participate are contained in the attached Word document. Please register to join the celebration at: http://bit.ly/johnweirsingleton which also contains additional information. With love and appreciation to all of you who made John's life abundant. Louise Rob, Martha, David, and Will Louise Singleton 3101 Old Pecos Trail, Unit 509 Santa Fe, NM, 87505 lrsingleton85(a)gmail.com<mailto:lrsingleton85@gmail.com> J. Robinson Singleton, MD Professor and Vice Chairman for VA Programs, Department of Neurology, University of Utah Chief of Service, Neurology, Salt Lake City Veterans Medical Center Office 801-581-6770 Cell- 801-201-4525

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John Epps completed life
by John Epps 16 May '23

16 May '23

Dear Communion of Saints, John's earthly existence was completed on Wednesday morning, June 24, 2020. His last words were "thank you," the same words he wrote to you on June 9 in his brief comments, "Thanks for the memories." For five days we were privileged to be in the lovely Denver Hospice which enveloped us with grace and compassion. I am grateful for your many comments of appreciation for John in response to his "Last Collegium." His remains will be interred at the Montview Presbyterian Church Columbarium in Denver. Grace and Peace, Ann

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2022 ICA USA Highlights
by Karen Snyder 29 Nov '22

29 Nov '22

ICA USA has been posting highlights of 2022 on Facebook and Instagram. Visit https://www.facebook.com/icausaorg to get an update.

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Prof Timothy Snyder's lectures on Ukraine are available on YouTube
by David Dunn 25 Nov '22

25 Nov '22

Hi everyone. I suspect that many of you already know of the Yale professor of history, Timothy Snyder and his lectures about “The Making of Modern Ukraine" on YouTube. A month or so ago, Burna and I stumbled onto one of his 50-minute lectures. We’ve been closely following this series and other presentations he’s been making over the past five+ years. We've been surprised and thrilled. He is a great lecturer, has vast knowledge as a historian with especially close ties to Ukraine, Poland and other countries in Europe and deep historical familiarity with the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. He’s multilingual and has been in touch with President Zelensky recently. Long before the beginning of the war Russia precipitated last February, Snyder had been relentlessly working to expand the context of European history and this conflict in particular. Just search for Timothy Snyder and you’ll see the multiple talks he’s given. For a fine intro, I'd recommend the keynote talk at the Davos 2022 conference last May. It's a very fine talk and a good taste of Prof. Snyder's speaking style and message, A screen shot and the URL for the YouTube video are below. It love to hear who else is following him or has listened to one or more of his talks. David — dmdunn1(a)gmail.com 720-314-5991 https://youtu.be/FC-Eu-THPCo — David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 -- dmdunn1(a)gmail.com 720-314-5991

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11/24/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox: In Praise of Thanks; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 24 Nov '22

24 Nov '22

| | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In Praise of Thanks | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox November 24, 2022 Thanksgiving 2022. There is much to be grateful for; and much to be concerned about. The latter includes global warming and the end of the Earth as humanity has known it for the past 200,000 years of our existence. GOP22 is testimony to that fact as are the rising seas, the record-smashing heat waves (China included), the dried up rivers from the Danube to the Rhine to the Thames in Europe to the Colorado River and Mississippi River in North America and the Yangtze River in China, called the “most important river in China.” The melting of glaciers provides water for much of Asia and Africa and more. The diminishment of the world’s forests and rainforests, soil and waters. The heating and acidification of the oceans will forever empty the ocean of many of its living creatures. And so much more. How many more facts have to come out for humanity to wake up from its “narcissism” (Pope Francis’ appropriate word) and come to its own rescue, drop its insane wars and military budgets, and get to the common task of saving the planet for our own and others species survival? I propose that a new revolution of thankfulness is the best ‘weapon’ humans possess to bring about this wake up in the midst of emergency. If we borrow the physics of old, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and add Spirit to it, we have a chance at survival. If we don’t, our time is very much limited on this planet. Thanks and Gratitude are the bottom line energies we need today. Thanks for Earth and its generous hospitality that has welcomed our species, fed it, nurtured it, delighted it, amazed it, and made our existence possible and beautiful. She is our Mother as all the great mystics of old from Hildegard of Bingen to Francis of Assisi to Julian of Norwich know and indigenous peoples know well. And that She deserves our praise and our thanks and our eagerness to imitate her and make healing happen. Thanks for the Air we breathe and can no longer take for granted. For the healthiness of it, for the miracle of it, breath in/breath out. For how our lungs are perfectly in tune with the special combination of oxygen and the rest, the miracle that we call Air. Science tells us that the 4 mile thick cover of air that surrounds the earth is proportionately less than the thickness of the apple skin is to the apple. Beyond that four mile distance airlessness reigns. Thanks for Fire, the Sun and the warmth and light it offers us for free every day. And the photosynthesis that brings us the food we all eat because it is the food all plants and animals eat. The fire that ignites our souls as well as warms and nurtures our bodies and that many peoples, including those of the Bible tradition, have honored as a symbol of Spirit, Divinity, God or Love. “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of thy love.” Fire is at the forefront of our survival and interest today because that is what constitutes an “energy crisis.” How do we get our fire? From dead plants and animals of millions of years ago that we know as oil and coal and fossil fuels? We are being asked to change our ways of fire drastically today if we are to survive. We need to fall in love with Fire anew other than the fire (energy) of fossil fuels--other kinds of fire such as sunlight and wind and waves. We are in a “fire crisis” insofar as we find ourselves in an “energy crisis.” If we are truly grateful for Fire we will choose wisely. Thanks to those efforts by world leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists and citizens who are demonstrating and demanding new ways to employ fire. Ways that take us beyond burning trees and forests, coal and oil. Fire’s dangerous side is apparent in the wildfires so devastating the Western United States at this time but also happening around the world and especially in Africa. Another wake up call to tame Fire. Fire is masculine or yang energy. So a revolution in fire consciousness is another expression of our need to move beyond excessive patriarchal or toxic masculinity to a healthier version of fire and energy, one that nurtures generations to come with care and concern and sustainability. More Yin energy. Thanks for Water. Who can live without water? Not just for our drinking, cooking, cooling and cleaning but also for the aesthetic of it, the beauty of it to be found in soothing lakes and rapid rivers and mysterious oceans and awesome waterfalls and gentle rains and wild thunderstorms. We are a blue planet after all, thanks to the waters. Buck Ghosthorse, a Lakota teacher, faculty member and friend once said to me, “Do you want to know how sacred water is? Go without it for three days.” The increased droughts in dry places and floods and hurricanes in wet places is a sign of our times. And of global warming. Water too has its dark and dangerous side. A fireman once told me that water is more dangerous than fire. Water is Yin energy, feminine energy. Here too we can see that too much water on the one hand, or too little on the other, speaks to us of the proper balance we all need, Mother Earth needs, for harmony and peace and survival. Yin and Yang in balance, Water and Fire in balance. The sacred and healthy masculine and the divine feminine in balance. There lies our survival. Thanks for Earth, Air, Fire, Water: There lies the political and spiritual and survival agenda for our species today. We are staring extinction in the face. Let us return to Thanks. And then act on that thanks. French playwright Antonin Artaud speaks a stark truth when he says that “It is good that from time to time cataclysms occur that compel us to return to nature, i.e., to rediscover life.”[i] Our current extinction emergency is forcing us to return to nature and to basics. Thanksgiving is basic. Thanks for existence and therefore creation or nature is basic. How basic? Listen to these creation mystics: Thomas Aquinas: “Religion is supreme thankfulness and gratitude.”[ii] Notice how for Aquinas thanks is the very essence of religion—not hierarchy, not church buildings, not commandments, not redemption, not escaping hell or grabbing at heaven--but gratitude. Indeed, supreme gratitude. And this is the very meaning of worship and of the Sabbath. As Aquinas puts it, “of all the divine gifts to be commemorated, the first and foremost was that of the Creation, which was called to mind by the sanctification of the sabbath.... The sanctification of the Sabbath [is] in memory of the creation of all things.”[iii] And of course the very meaning of Christian worship, called Eucharist, is “to give thanks.” Can the move away from Religion to Spirituality today be a move toward Thankfulness and Gratitude as the bottom line for prayer and authentic religion? The beginning point for an authentic and deep mystical/prophetic journey? The Via Positiva as a springboard to Justice and Compassion and therefore survival? Meister Eckhart tells us that “if the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.” This seems to be a stripped down version of what Aquinas teaches above. Julian of Norwich: “This is the holiest prayer—the prayer of thanksgiving.” Such thanksgiving leads to actions. As she puts it, “charged with the quality of reverence and loving awe, we turn ourselves with all our might toward the actions” to which we are guided.[iv] The great psychologist Otto Rank, only now being given credit for being the father of humanistic psychology including his influence on Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Rollo May, defines the artist as “one who wants to leave behind a gift.” Of course, among indigenous peoples, everyone is an artist and this is surely at the heart of the biblical teaching that we are all made in the image and likeness of the Creator. We are all “co-creators” and in this Aquinas says lies the deepest meaning of our being called “images of God.” He writes: “Although a created being tends to the divine likeness in many ways, this one whereby it seeks the divine likeness by being the cause of others takes the ultimate place. Hence Dionysius says, that ‘of all things, it is more divine to become a co-worker with God’ in accord with the statement of the Apostle: ‘we are God’s co-workers’ (1 Cor. 3:9).”[v] Isn’t the desire to “leave behind a gift” itself an act of thanksgiving? We all leave this embodiment of ourselves on Earth. Few know the time or place, but we do know we are mortal and therefore exiting. Thus we yearn to leave behind a gift. Gift for gift. Our Thank You for our having visited this place. Our thank you for our existence. Let us praise all those who want to leave behind a gift. Let us praise thanks and our capacity for thanks. Thanks is the opposite of Taking for Granted. Let us all cease taking for granted. That includes taking for granted Earth, Air, Fire and Water. And Spirit. ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 40 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 78 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship (called The Cosmic Mass). His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much-neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Among his books are A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey; Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times; Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; Order of the Sacred Earth; The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times; and Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic – And Beyond; Original Blessing; The Coming of the Cosmic Christ; Stations of the Cosmic Christ; A Spirituality Named Compassion. To encourage a passionate response to the news of climate change advancing so rapidly, Fox started DailyMeditationswithMatthewFox.org [i] See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, p. 302. [ii] Matthew Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 41-44. [iii] See Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, p. 177. [iv] Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond, pp. 101f. [v] Fox, Sheer Joy, p. 245. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader I am feeling concerned that life may not really matter and question whether my own life has a deeper meaning and will make any real difference in the world. A: By Brian D. McLaren Dear Reader, As I read your brief note, I feel both the personal pain that is unique to you and your situation, and the more general anxiety that resonates so deeply with universal human condition. The most sensitive and reflective among us, those with the highest ideals, seem to feel most acutely the gap between their hopeful dreams and actual reality. And all of us, or nearly all of us, reach low points where it feels that we have ruined our lives and squandered opportunities. I can’t help but wonder how old you are, because this question has one kind of poignancy among the young who have uncertain years stretched out ahead of them, another among the middle aged whose candle seems half-gone, and another among the elders who look back and wonder what has actually been accomplished after years of effort. Through my many years as a Christian, I have come to see more clearly something that was incredibly obvious in the New Testament, but that I had been trained, it seems, to not see. A friend of mine captured it after a super difficult period of life, when he said, “Life is a gift and love is the point.” In Paul’s writings, he puts it both negatively and positively. Negatively (1 Corinthians 13), he tells us that our greatest successes in life — without love — are meaningless. In place of a coherent melody, there is only a hollow noise. Positively (Galatians 5:6), he tells that many things are indeed meaningless, including issues religious people argue about fervently. The only thing that matters, he says, is faith expressing itself through love. So here is what I would encourage you, or anyone wondering about the meaning of their life, to do. First, think back on the people who have loved you — family, friends, teachers, colleagues, even strangers who have shown you kindness and respect. See yourself as a person who has been loved. Second, think about the love and generosity that have come to you from other living creatures, even the earth itself… from a cat curling in your lap or a dog wagging his tail to greet you, from the rains and soil, from a ripe summer peach or a plump spring strawberry or a crisp autumn apple, from beauty shining in a shimmering field of wheat or in a frosty window on a winter’s morning. Allow yourself to feel that you were given the gift of life, full of generous gifts like these. Third, think about the love you have shown… the people you have cared about, the causes you have been committed to, the work you have done to benefit others. Then, perhaps you could reflect upon these words from the New Testament (1 John 4:7-8): “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God… because God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in that person.” If we listen to the voice of the Spirit whispering up from deep within us, I think we will hear something like this: the measure of a meaningful life is love… receiving love, sharing love. Even if we lived a hateful life up until this moment, there is good news: the smallest gesture of love that we indulge in today, from giving a cup of cold water to someone in need to sharing a kind word or smile, will not be meaningless. It will mark the turning of our lives toward the light. Please know that my heart, and the hearts of so many people reading your note, are rising up in love for you today. Your honesty and desire for meaning have stirred up more love in the world today, and that makes a difference. ~ Brian D. McLaren Read and share 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 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 book is Faith After Doubt. He is the author of the illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story, The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? And his newest book, Do I Stay Christian?. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From all of your friends at ProgressiveChristianity.org we wish to extend to you and your family a blessed and Happy Thanksgiving! This is the time of year we need to call on our annual donors to step forward. We need to raise 30% of our annual budget during the last few weeks of the year. Please give, if you can, your gift will ensure that Progressive Christianity.org will continue the work of providing progressive Christian Resources and Tools for individuals and churches for the coming year. If you are looking for the best way to help us become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Part I: The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong May 30, 2013 I think it is fair to say that I could not have written this book 25 years ago. For most of my career, I was almost repelled by the Fourth Gospel. It seemed to me to portray Jesus with his humanity no longer intact. In this gospel, he does not appear to suffer. There is no sense of the Jesus who was portrayed in the synoptic gospels as apprehensive in anticipation of his death. John’s Jesus never prays that “this cup might pass from me.” Indeed, he actually rejects that idea with the statement, “It was to drink this cup that I was born!” The Fourth Gospel relates to the cross of Jesus, not as a place of suffering, but as the place where Jesus is to be glorified. From John’s cross the cry of dereliction (“My God, why have you forsaken me?”) has disappeared and has been replaced by the triumphant assertion, “It is finished!” Jesus is informing God that the work “Thou hast given me to do” has been successfully completed. John’s Jesus appears to have no human limits. This gospel seems to claim for him a pre-existent status. “Before Abraham was, I am!” he is made to say and “Moses rejoiced to see my day.” This gospel has God designate Jesus as the son of God not at the resurrection, as Paul appears to do (Romans 1:1-4) or at the baptism by John the Baptist as Mark appears to do or even at the miracle of the virgin birth as both Matthew and Luke appear to do. John’s Jesus was, according to the prologue, the son of God from the dawn of creation. He was “the Word of God” that said “Let there be light” and thus called the world into being. That same “Word of God” simply became flesh in human history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. One cannot, however, be fully human and at the same time be a part of who God is since the beginning of time. The Jesus of John’s gospel seemed to me to be related to God in the same way that Clark Kent was related to Superman. Clark Kent was not really a newspaper reporter, he was Superman in disguise. The Jesus of John’s gospel does not appear to be a real human being; he is God in disguise. In this gospel, Jesus was made to say such things as “The Father and I are one” and, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” To affirm this divine status the author of this book has taken the name of God, “I AM,” out of the story of Moses and the burning bush and has placed it into the mouth of the Jesus of history. So Jesus is made to identify himself with the God “I AM” over and over again in the Johannine text. “I AM the bread of life,” “I AM living water,” “I AM the door,” “I AM the way, the truth and the life,” “I Am the vine,” “I AM the good shepherd” and “I AM the resurrection.” Jesus is also made to claim that he alone is the only way to God and that only when he is lifted up (on the cross) will that “I AM” presence be revealed. Only in that picture of the dying Jesus on the cross will the world see God. Since I could find no way to relate to this non-human Jesus I tended to hope that portrait would go away. The Fourth Gospel has also, in my opinion, served to feed the anti-Semitism that has stained Christian history through the ages. From the Fourth Gospel it appeared to spread through the church fathers (there were no mothers) culminating in the horrifying genocidal outburst in the 20th century that we know as “The Holocaust.” There are times when this gospel seems to spit the words “the Jews” out of its author’s mouth with contempt. This gospel is the only place in the Bible where Jesus is quoted as calling the Jews “the children of the devil.” Those were some of the reasons I was never drawn to this book and why attempting to study it deeply was not something I would have chosen to do at an earlier part of my life. There was one other reason for this negativity that comes out of Christian history. The Fourth Gospel was installed at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE as the ultimate and final arbiter of what came to be called “Christian orthodoxy.” In that council, the battle not only for the soul, but also for the future of Christianity, was fought out under the watchful eye of the Emperor Constantine, who wanted unified Christianity to be a unifying force in his empire. In that defining debate, the chief protagonists were a priest named Arius and a deacon, soon to be a priest and later a bishop, named Athanasius. The content of this battle was over the nature of Jesus, that is, was he of “like substance” or “identical substance” with God? Arius, using quotations from all four of the gospels, argued passionately that Jesus was of “like substance” with God. Athanasius, quoting only the Fourth Gospel as his authority, argued that Jesus was of “identical substance” with God. When the smoke of the battle cleared, Athanasius was declared the winner and the Nicene Creed was adopted, sealing Athanasius’ victory with these words describing Jesus: He was “the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father.” This creed closed every loophole used in the debate with Arius and magnified Jesus’ divinity to the exclusion of his humanity. It also opened the door to what became the defining doctrines that we call “Incarnation” and “Holy Trinity,” which were not fully developed until the 5th century. This Fourth Gospel-supported definition became the substance of Christian orthodoxy. In time this definition of Jesus led to religious wars, religious persecutions, heresy trials, the Inquisition and the condemnation of anyone who dared to think outside the box. Thus this gospel came to be associated with everything that repelled me about Christianity and so it had little appeal. That is why I did not have any interest in studying it much less trying to write about it earlier. Well, things change and my latest book on the Fourth Gospel will soon be in bookstores and a new debate of John, I hope, will ensue. How did that change occur? It took two steps. First, I discovered that the Fourth Gospel had been misread for centuries; that it is a deeply and passionately Jewish book. That insight was initiated when I discovered only a dozen or so years ago, a book written in the 1960’s by an English scholar named Eileen Guilding, herself the academic child of two gigantic New Testament scholars, F.F. Bruce and Austin Farrer. It was as if I had just found a long lost key. Guilding’s book was entitled The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship. I realized then that the Johannine community, which had produced this gospel, was itself a profoundly Jewish community so that when they battled those they called “the Jews,” it was an intra-synagogue conflict between Jews and Jews, one group called “Revisionist Jews” and the other “Orthodox Jews.” Then I searched this gospel for its Jewish base and only when I discovered this could I feel the Jewish pain of their being excommunicated from the synagogue by the Orthodox party, an event that occurred around the year 88 CE. The words expressing this pain were later used in the text of this gospel to castigate all Jews, for these texts were quoted throughout the centuries with no sense of their historical context. The second step came when I realized that only when the members of the Johannine community found themselves outside the synagogue did they begin to place their Christ experience into a more universal language than the one they had known while still a part of the synagogue. This was when they turned to a form of first century Jewish mysticism to find a new vocabulary inside which they could express their faith. Jewish mysticism, like mysticism everywhere, understands the limits that words possess. To talk about their transcendent understanding of Christ, they stretched the words they used to the breaking point to make them big enough to capture the Jesus they had experienced as the mystery and the presence of the Ultimate, which they called God. So they painted Jesus in mystical language, not designed to be literalized. Literal words can never carry mystical meaning without being distorted. They then turned what had once been called “miracles” into what this gospel would call “signs.” “Signs” pointed to a reality they could never capture. Thus I discovered that the language of the Fourth Gospel is not the language of the orthodox understanding of incarnation. It is the language of Jewish mysticism. It does not lend itself to creedal formulas or doctrinal debates, but to the processing of mystical experiences. Armed with this gospel’s original Jewishness, recognizing the pain of separation that the Johannine community felt when Orthodox Judaism could not stretch to include them and finally recognizing that what they did was to turn to the inclusive, unlimited vocabulary of Jewish mysticism in order to record their experience of Jesus, I then went back to the Fourth Gospel to read it anew. It was not the same book that once repelled me. Indeed, it captured me as no other book has done before and I devoured it until I was transformed by it. Only then could I write the words that appear in this book’s preface: “Part of my task in this book is to pull anti-Semitism out of Christian history and to pull creedal orthodoxy out of Christianity. I now find this gospel not to be about religion or sin and salvation, but to be about life, expanded life and expanded consciousness. I believe that the Fourth Gospel, properly understood, will lead Christianity into an entirely different direction from the one traditional Christian teaching has followed from Nicaea to this day.” It is now for me a blueprint for a new Christianity for a new world. ~ John Shelby Spong Click here to purchase The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic | | | | | | | | Announcements Answer the Call for an Uncommon Life Through the Mystical Teachings of St. Hildegard A Comprehensive Two-Course Journey to Inspire Putting Your Spirituality Into Action 12th-century mystic and visionary Hildegard of Bingen was a brash and brilliant medieval abbess who rebelled fearlessly against the patriarchy of church and society. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Re: [Oe List ...] Completed Life of Meg Tippett
by jonzondo＠juno.com 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

I am lighting a candle for Meg and family.And I will be singing an honoring song with my drum later today.Much love to you all.We are all connected.Jon Mark Elizondo ---------- Original Message ---------- From: Lynda C via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: OE List <OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Cc: Lynda C <lynda860(a)outlook.com> Subject: [Oe List ...] Completed Life of Meg Tippett Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2022 01:47:42 +0000 From: Lynda Cock <lynda860(a)outlook.com> Date: Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 3:00 PM To: ICA Directory <movementdir(a)aol.com> Subject: Meg Tippett Many of you on this list have assisted with Meg’s physical care and support after her tragic accident over 37 years ago. To those new to the list, she was one of our youth in the Emerging Generation, along with sisters Brook and Kit. You may also know Mike as The Directory Man, who keeps us all connected. With Mike’s permission, I am posting again the letter below from The Tippett family on our OE list serve as we join with them in care and prayers and resources in support of daughter/sister Meg’s expenses. The family may be contacted at their new address with daughter Kit and husband Jimmy Lee in Maryland. 2200 Wetherburne Way Frederick, MD 21702 Mbtippettt2(a)aol.com 941-713-8626 With care for this family, we celebrate the completed life of Meg Tippett and her courageous and care-filled journey, Lynda and John Cock From: ICA Directory <movementdir(a)aol.com> Reply-To: ICA Directory <movementdir(a)aol.com> Date: Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 10:03 PM To: Lynda Cock <lynda860(a)outlook.com> Subject: Meg Tippett Dear Lynda and John: This is what we've been sending out: Dearest Family and Friends: RE: Update on Meg Tippett First, let us apologize for the mass email. We would love to speak with each of you individually, and welcome that opportunity, but wanted to get out the basics to everyone at once. Last Monday (10/24) Meg was taken to the emergency room at Frederick Health Hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. As Mike was in Chicago visiting daughter Brooke and husband Keith, Kit and husband Jimmy met Meg at the ER. There were many attempts to determine the cause of Meg’s distress and many tests were run. Despite all efforts, Meg continued to be in terrible distress and the Doctors were unable to get her breathing under control, so she was placed on a ventilator and admitted to the ICU. Mike came home Tuesday and Brooke arrived in Maryland on Friday. After six days in the ICU and attempts to stabilize her breathing, Meg was taken off the ventilator and moved to the hospice unit in the hospital. Tuesday (11/1) morning she was moved to a lovely hospice facility in Frederick where she will be kept comfortable as she passes. Under Mike and Judith's care, along with wonderful caregivers, especially our beloved Dawn, and with encouragement from so many of you, Meg thrived and while we will mourn her loss, we can be comforted knowing that she had the best life possible. With so much love and gratitude, Mike, Kit and Brooke and the rest of our family.

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11/18/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 18 Nov '22

18 Nov '22

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11/17/2022, Progressing Spirit: Brian D. McLaren: Losing My Place in the Winner’s Inner Circle; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 17 Nov '22

17 Nov '22

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McLaren November 17, 2022I was sitting at my computer answering emails the other day and seemingly out of nowhere, a realization about myself crept up my neck and into my consciousness. The realization was not flattering, but it has proven surprisingly persistent, helpful, and effective at drawing me deeper into contemplation.I grew up in a tiny Protestant sect known as the Plymouth Brethren. We had some beautiful qualities as every group does. We also punched above our weight by introducing some of the worst ideas in the history of Christian theology: the rapture, for example, which we gave the world in the 1830s. (You’re welcome.)Church historians would categorize us as restorationist, sectarian, and fundamentalist. But in our own eyes, we were a holy minority, a faithful remnant in a “church in ruins,” a biblical oasis in a religious wasteland of divided, lukewarm, misguided “denominations.”By the time I was a teenager, I saw problems with our elitism. I felt (to borrow a metaphor used by one of the few charismatic writers in our tribe) like I was swimming in a tiny tide pool. Our elders were the classic big fish in small ponds, and I longed for the tide to come in so I could swim in the wider ocean and find brighter lights to learn from.In my twenties and thirties (which coincided with the 1970’s and 1980’s), that’s what happened. I “graduated” from a Fundamentalist tide pool to the larger Evangelical bay.Many will find this surprising, but for someone like me, raised in fundamentalism, becoming Evangelical was a step into a more open - even liberal - form of Christianity (which proves the old adage that everything is, to a degree at least, relative).When I became Evangelical, I was joining something broader, bigger, and more respectable. If not the ocean, Evangelicalism provided a bit more theological oxygen and room to swim. In the Evangelical community, I heard people talk about three streams (Evangelical, charismatic, and liturgical) that were coming together in one big river. One pastor said, “We’re Evangelical in the pulpit, liturgical at the communion table, and Pentecostal in the pew.” We were combining the best of all worlds, in my understanding at the time.We were drawing from a rich, broad history of faithfulness under the banner of Biblical Christianity or Historic Christian Orthodoxy.In the 1980’s and 1990’s, I could see that our Evangelical community was growing. We had more and more mega-churches. We had more and more radio and TV stations. We had huge conferences. We had lots and lots of publishers and a steady stream of books. We even had a Church Growth Movement to help us manage our spiritual success. Meanwhile, the liberals - liberal being the primary epithet in my new Evangelical vocabulary - were declining, plummeting toward shrinking and wrinkling, death, and irrelevance. I clearly had joined a winning team with a heroic past and a bright future!What’s not to like about that?But by the mid-90’s, I could tell things were going south. Literally. It felt like we were being taken over by Southern Baptists, the Assemblies of God, and other expressions of Twentieth Century Southern Christianity. It felt like a resurgence of the same elitism and narrow-mindedness I had tried to escape by leaving the fundamentalism of my childhood.I see what was happening more clearly now, in hindsight: yes, our numbers were growing, but our theology was constricting.Around that time, a pastor friend, the son of a famous charismatic megachurch leader, surprised me when he said, “Remember, Brian, charismatics are just fundamentalists with different practices.” Yes: I had indeed left one form of fundamentalism. But I had made a lateral transfer, into a different form of fundamentalism with different practices. I felt like a refugee who had fled an authoritarian regime to build a new life in a land of freedom, only to discover that my new home was succumbing to the authoritarianism I was trying to escape.I didn’t want to leave Evangelicalism, but I felt it was leaving me. And there was profound grief in leaving. And here’s the realization that hit me as I sat at my computer: A major part of the grief of leaving was the grief of losing my place in what felt like a majority (moral or otherwise). I was losing my identity as a member of something big, shiny, proud, and successful.It was as if I had moved from a cramped 2 bedroom apartment into a sprawling, well-appointed McMansion, and now, I was losing my place in that prestigious zip code.I have been sitting with that grief for a few days now, and it is helping me understand how others feel … Mainline Protestants were part of America’s most successful form of Christianity until the tide began to turn in the late sixties and early seventies, and now, they are no longer the successful majority.Roman Catholic immigrants were part of the dominant church in Europe and Latin America, only to be a minority in many places in the US. White people have felt themselves part of a secure and dominant majority … and now, are seeing that identity slip away.I’m writing these words right before the 2022 midterm elections, and you’re reading them right after … and depending on how the elections go, Democrats and progressives or Republicans and conservatives will to feel demoted from majority/winner to minority/loser status. And whoever loses will have a pool of grief to process.The same will be true for people who believe in democracy and want to fight climate change if election deniers and climate change deniers gain ascendency. Those of us who have been in the struggle for women’s equality, racial equality, and LGBTQ equality might similarly feel displaced … knocked out of the inner circle and winner’s circle, and displaced to the margins where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.Grief, psychologists tell us, inspires a variety of responses, including the Big Four of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Sitting at my computer the other day, I realized that these emotions have had a big role in my life, as I processed my shifting religious status and identity.Sometimes, as the Big Four do their work on us, a new feeling arises: acceptance — not that I am happy about my new status, but that I acknowledge that this is the new reality. I accept my new status and I stop denying it, or feeling angry and depressed about it, or thinking I can somehow bargain my way out of it. My self-talk changes: Things did not turn out the way I hoped. I am in a place I did not want to be. To the degree I can accept that reality, I can make meaning in it and begin to imagine how to build a new identity in this place, how to live a meaningful life in this new reality.I do not want to return to the elite remnant mindset I grew up observing in the fundamentalism of my youth. But now, in my sixties, I realize the allure of being in the inner winner’s circle has lost its appeal, whether it’s in a big pond or a small one.The wisdom of St. Wendell of Berry is taking hold in me. (See his “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.)I realize I would rather lose among a minority in a struggle for what I believe in than win with a majority in a vain struggle for “the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.” I find myself willing to “listen to carrion.” In what seems to have died and failed, I begin to “hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.” (In this light, see Steve Bell's powerful song, "In Praise of Decay," here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0CEM5IylwM.)I see why Wendell Berry's Mad Farmer counseled us to “expect the end of the world” and be joyful even “though [we] have considered all the facts.”For this is what it means, I am coming to see, to “practice resurrection.”~ Brian D. 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 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 book is Faith After Doubt. He is the author of the illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story, The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? And his newest book, Do I Stay Christian?. He is a popular conference speaker, a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings, 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. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader How can I help my fellow parishioner who, after a long and debilitating health issue, is struggling with feelings of anger and disappointment with God and is feeling abandoned, or unloved by God? A: By Dr. Carl Krieg Dear Reader,Whether trying to help someone else, or trying to help oneself, it helps to realize that we are not alone in our bewilderment about suffering and that others have agonized over the same problem. The New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, facing the “problem of evil”, ie, the issue of undeserved suffering, turned his back to Christianity and became agnostic. Robert Duvall, in his 2003 movie, Open Range, lost one of his cowboys in an ambush. When asked if he wanted to offer a prayer to God at the funeral, Duvall responded, “I don’t want anything to do with that son of a bitch.” Job, of course, is the embodiment of the ultimate innocent sufferer. Most readers don’t realize that there are three parts to this book: prologue, epilogue and main poem, the last being the first written. The image here is of a man ravaged by physical and social torment. His friends try to sooth his confusion and frustration, but his anger at God finds no comfort as he shakes his fist at the heavens and demands that the All Powerful come down and be tried in court. Readers of this poem in later years were so upset by Job’s reaction that they added a softener, a prologue and epilogue that cast the whole scene as a wager between God and Satan wherein Job remains faithfully patient and so is rewarded manifold. Not the original story. You may remember the “solution” of the poem, where God does indeed answer Job and speaks out a whirlwind. “Where were you when the foundations of the earth were created…?”, which, of course, is no answer at all. When we remember that the voice is a literary gimmick and not the actual voice of God, it becomes clear that when confronted with the question, “Why do the innocent suffer?”, Job’s answer is, “I don’t know. I just don’t know”. Shaking her fist at the heavens my very own mother couldn’t wait to meet God and give him a piece of her mind. Dismay at innocent suffering in the world creates in us an unremitting anger with a God who permits such to happen. The problem arises when we assume that god is both loving and omnipotent. If a loving god can stop suffering and chooses not to, what kind of god are we dealing with? For myself, I answer the question on two levels, the immediate and the long range. In the context of current suffering, we need to get away from the idea that god can fix everything. No prayers for a new bike, a victory at a game or in a war, no cure for that which is presently incurable. God is not omnipotent. That’s one of the lessons we learn from Jesus: the way the divine is related to the world is not through the brute force of intervention, but through the persuasive power of love. This perspective necessitates that we forgo the notion that Jesus violated the order of nature by walking on water and turning water into wine. God does not intervene to prevent innocent suffering.The long term perspective is different. When it comes to how we view the universe, we have three choices: the cosmos is immoral, meaning that the devil rules, so to speak, or it is amoral, meaning that suffering comes and goes with no meaning and no cause for dismay, or the universe is moral. The morality of the universe means that the undeserved suffering and death of an innocent two year old, for example, is not the end of the story, that somehow, some way, some time, God makes it all right. The referred to persuasive power of love is not a mushy sentiment but rather a statement about the essence of the universe. That, of course, is a statement of faith, but a statement to the contrary is, for me, not acceptable.Struggling with health and loss is painful, but also mitigated when we realize that we are not alone and that others share our confusion and our pain. God also shares our pain in the here and now, a God in and with us, not presenting miraculous cures, but beyond our understanding assuring us that love will win the day.~ Dr. 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 Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith, The Void and the Vision and The New Matrix: How the World We Live In Impacts Our Thinking About Self and God. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As a non-profit ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit rely heavily on the good will of our donors to help us continue to bring individuals and churches the messages of progressive Christians, Weekly Newsletters, along with the many other resources we provide. For years, the majority of our fundraising came at the end of the year. Looking at various ways to create a more reasonable amount of cash flow we decided rather than having a BIG ask at the end of each year, our more frequent asks give folks a chance to contribute when their funds are more flexible. We think that's a win for everyone. We also want to highlight the opportunity to become a sustaining supporter. If you are looking for the best way to help us continue to provide progressive Christian resources, become a sustaining supporter by choosing Recurring Donation. Help keep ProgressiveChristianity.org online and going strong - click here to donate today! * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | | | Don't miss the next Episode of PC.org's Executive Directors Mark and Caleb on: The Moonshine Jesus Show - every Monday at 4:30pm Eastern Time – watch live on Facebook,, YouTube, Twitter, Podbean | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Birth of Jesus, Part XIV The Old Testament Antecedents in Luke's Story of Jesus' Birth Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong May 16, 2013In order to understand the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke, we need to embrace the fact that there is no way these stories were intended to be regarded as remembered history or as narratives that were literally true. That must be stated clearly. This means that there never was a star in the east or wise men who followed it. There never was a heavenly host of angels who sang to hillside shepherds. There never was a miraculous birth. These stories are memorable, engaging and fanciful, but neither Matthew nor Luke believed themselves to be recording something that actually happened at the time of Jesus’ birth. They knew that they were creating narratives in which they used symbols to interpret the adult experience the community’s leaders had had with one named Jesus of Nazareth. The proof of this is realized when we discover how much stories from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than eye witness accounts were used to provide the content of their birth narratives. Matthew’s story of the wise men, for example, was originally the creative work of an imaginative preacher, who combined Isaiah 60 with the story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (1 Kings 10) with some other illusions from the story of Balaam and Balak (Numbers 22-24). When we turn to Luke’s story, we discover that time after time he drew on accounts in Genesis with other toe-dips into such sources as the books of Daniel, Exodus and Malachi. It is an exciting adventure to unravel this biblical mystery story. Luke’s narrative begins with the birth of John the Baptist and one knowledgeable of the Hebrew Scriptures will immediately see here a familiar Jewish story. First, the parents of John the Baptist are introduced. Their names are Zechariah, a priest of the order of Abijah, and Elizabeth, a “daughter of Aaron,” who was both the brother of Moses and the first high priest of the Jewish nation. Both Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as righteous people, who “followed the laws of God in a blameless way.” They were now elderly, childless and thus without an heir. This, in a typically patriarchal way, was blamed on the woman, who is called “barren.” No one knew anything in those days about low sperm counts. Readers familiar with the book of Genesis will recognize this story as a retelling of the Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah prior to the conception of Isaac. Then the story of John the Baptist unfolds. Zechariah’s division of the priesthood was on duty to perform the sacred functions in the Temple. By lot, the opportunity to burn the incense in the Holy of Holies fell to him. This was considered a moment of intense meaning and high honor. A multitude of people waited outside for this ritual to be completed. People are always drawn to moments when mystery fills the air. Inside, however, Zechariah was delayed by what we are later to learn was a revelatory vision. An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Typically, Zechariah fell away in fear. The angel spoke telling him not to be afraid that his prayers for a child had been heard and that Elizabeth would bear a son. This son, the angel says, will accomplish great things working “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” Zechariah is incredulous. “How shall I know that this is so? My wife and I are well advanced in years.” In Genesis, Sarah was said to have been 90 years old and “past the time of women.” Identifying himself as Gabriel, the angel gives Zechariah a sign. “You will be unable to speak until the child is born. That too elicited Jewish scriptural memories. In the eighth chapter of Daniel, Daniel also had a vision of the Angel Gabriel in the Temple and following this vision he was commanded not to speak. These stories are been replicated. This episode took up so much time that the crowd of worshipers began to wonder what was happening. What went wrong? When Zechariah finally appeared and was unable to speak, their wonder was greatly enhanced. They speculated that he must have had a vision, but its content was not disclosed to them. Zechariah then completed his priestly duties and returned to his home. There, we are told, Elizabeth conceived and hid herself for five months, while she rejoiced that the Lord has “taken away my reproach among men.” Assuming that this story is not history, we ask why was it that Luke decided to name the parents of John the Baptist Zechariah and Elizabeth. Names are always clues in interpretive tales. There are a number of Zechariahs in the Hebrew Scriptures, but the most important one is the prophet, whose work is recorded in the “Book of the Twelve,” also called the minor prophets. Zechariah is the next to last book in the Old Testament followed only by the book of Malachi. Malachi is not the name of the author of this book, but is rather a Hebrew word that means “my messenger.” “Malachi” is thus a nameless voice whose task is to be the messenger, who “prepares the way for the coming of the Lord.” The book of Malachi relates this messenger to Elijah and, as we noted earlier, the angel says to Zechariah that the promised child will come “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” If John the Baptist is thus to be identified with Malachi, the nameless messenger who prepares the way for the Lord, then why not signal that fact by giving John’s father the name Zechariah, the name of the immediate predecessor of Malachi? Luke sends a message with this name. It was not accidental. What then about his mother Elizabeth? That is a little more difficult, but not impossible to demonstrate. There is a clue in Luke’s text where Elizabeth is said to be “a daughter of Aaron.” There is only one other Elizabeth in the entire Old Testament, where the name is written not Elizabeth but Elisheba. That single Elisheba is the wife of Aaron, which also makes her a sister in-law to both Moses and his sister Miriam. Miriam plays a major role in the story of the Exodus and a song of triumph is attributed to her after the successful crossing of the Red Sea. Is Luke going to pattern the family of Jesus after the analogy of the family of Moses? I believe he does and this conviction opens up Luke’s interpretive genius. Be aware first that in Hebrew, Miriam, when translated, would be “Mary.” Next note that only in Luke in the entire New Testament is there any sense that Jesus and John the Baptist are kin. In the 14th century, John Wycliffe suggested they were cousins. The sole hint of relatedness is found in the story that Luke tells of the Annunciation by Gabriel to Mary when she learns that she is to be the mother of the Holy Child. In that annunciation, Gabriel uses these words: “your kinswoman, Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.” If Luke’s analogy for Elizabeth was Aaron’s wife, Elisheba, and if Aaron’s sister Miriam was to be Mary, then Elizabeth and Mary were going to be the mothers of these two promised children; one, the first born destined to be the forerunner, and the other, the second born, the messiah. They would then have clearly been first cousins. Luke then has Mary, pregnant with Jesus, go into the hill country of Judah to visit her “kinswoman,” Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. Here one other interpretive experience occurs. There is a fetal salute. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps to salute the baby in Mary’s womb, which means that the issue of priority is settled before the birth of either. What in the world does that mean? When the gospel of Luke was written there was obviously tension between the Jesus movement and the John the Baptist movement. That tension is reflected in the book of Acts. Jesus originally was a follower of John. John had baptized Jesus according to the first three gospels. It was only when “the Baptist” was imprisoned that Jesus broke forth as a leader in his own right. Some of Jesus’ disciples had come to him after having been disciples of John. So the disciples of Jesus felt a need to establish the priority of Jesus. Luke accomplishes that by suggesting that there had been a fetal salute that established Jesus’ superiority. From where do you suppose Luke got the idea for that story? Again we turn to the Hebrew Scriptures. There is only one other story in the entire Bible in which a baby leaps in its mother’s womb in a way that meaning is attributed to that action. It too is found in the book of Genesis. In chapter 25 Rebekah, the wife of Isaac was pregnant. When the baby leaped in her womb, she went to an oracle to help her understand what this leaping meant. There she was informed that she was having twins and that the meaning of the fetal leap was to establish the fact that the first born of the twins, who would be named Esau, would actually serve the second born of the two, who would be named Jacob. Luke takes this Genesis story and transforms it. Jesus and John the Baptist are not twins but they are kin, he suggests. John was the elder by six months, Luke tells us. In this case the elder of the two, John, was to be the servant of the second born, Jesus, like the first born Esau was destined to be the servant of the second born Jacob. John, who was to prepare the way for Jesus will later be made to say about Jesus: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Luke grounded the John the Baptist story in the Hebrew Scriptures. The vision in the Temple and the inability to speak came from Daniel. The post-menopausal pregnancy comes from Abraham and Sarah. The superiority of Jesus to John, as well as their kinship, comes from the story of Jacob and Esau. Luke is mining the Hebrew Scriptures to portray Jesus’ birth. One cannot understand the birth narratives unless one sees their connections with the Hebrew Scriptures. We will continue this study of Luke’s birth narratives when this series resumes.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements The Grace of the Four Consents The four consents are invitations to welcome all of life – birth, growth, suffering, dying and death – as God’s precious gifts and to appreciate the universe with all its beauty and potentialities. READ ON ... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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11/17/22 PHOTOS—B½ OF ARCHIVE PROJECT
by Frank Knutson 17 Nov '22

17 Nov '22

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. "But that is not what great ships are built for.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Wonderful News to Share
by Paula Philbrook 17 Nov '22

17 Nov '22

My dear league of Colleagues, I wanted to share this wonderful news: Misha (child of Marjorie Rebekah Otto grandchild of . . . and great grandchild of Marge and Phil Philbrook) is doing really well, and as of Friday Nov 11, he is done with cancer treatment. Thank you all for your support, prayers and energy in the two years since his diagnosis. See Bekah's reflections below and Raphi's beautiful words and pictures at this link. Raphi's update with pics Raphi's update with pics <https://www.notion.so/Good-News-21079a9b584c4333994ab81dbc3b473a> from M. Rebekah Otto We’re done I have always been a “words” person. If I am not talking, listening, reading, or writing, I would rather be talking, listening, reading, or writing. Then cancer came, and my words failed. They failed to protect my baby. They could not save him, only his doctors and his treatment would. I felt so powerless. After weeks of unexplained fevers and doctors dodging appointments because of COVID, our pediatrician finally examined him and saw that Misha had small red dots on his stomach and legs, petechiae, a sign of low platelets. He ordered labs. After dinner, our pediatrician called and said Misha’s blood labs are abnormal. Something is suppressing the bone marrow. It might be an unusual infection or it might be leukemia. Misha and I were sent to the emergency room immediately for more testing. When we got admitted to the hospital that night, the first team of residents told me, “it’s not a slam dunk” for a leukemia diagnosis. Wow! What a choice of words. They meant that the labs weren’t completely indicative, and they needed to do more testing. Then in the middle of the night a chatty nurse was taking Misha’s vitals and checking on me. I could not admit to myself that my baby probably had cancer. She said, “If it is leukemia, it will be a hard few years. You will all get through it, and then you will know that you can do anything.” Oh, what wisdom. In the weeks and months after diagnosis, we were terrified and treatment was its most intense. He had frequent procedures with sedation. He had a port placed in his chest. His nurses had to stick a needle in it to give him chemo. He had multiple blood transfusions. His meds made him put on a lot of weight, and he lost his hair. He didn’t look like himself anymore. After about nine months, we graduated to maintenance, with mostly at-home meds, and it felt manageable. It was full of blood draws and meds, learning new words like ANC and 6mp and Septra. Most of the time has been deeply normal: playdates, soccer practice, tantrums, TV, school. Somewhere in there we got COVID, went camping, moved, made new friends, loved each other, argued, watched the bears wrestle at the zoo, ate a lot of noodles. Cancer has been a fog, dangerous and unknown. I couldn’t see beyond it. I haven’t wanted to start writing about this journey because it hasn’t been over. I haven’t known how our cancer story ends, but now it has been a little more than two years. We are done with treatment today. Our baby has been in cancer treatment for half of his life, and I don’t have words for how happy I am that it’s over and he’s made it. 11/11/2022 Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Mahatma Gandhi

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