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Forrester/Spong: Participating in the Song of Life; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 16 Nov '17

16 Nov '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Participating in the Song of Life Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. ...After days of labor, …mute in my consternations, I hear my song at last, and I sing it. As we sing, …the day turns, the trees move. ………………“I go among trees and sit still,” Wendell Berry The first lines of John’s gospel proclaim that “in the beginning was the Word,” and that “all things came into being through the Word.” We can hear these words literally as an historical assertion claiming that at some distant point in ancient times – the initiation of time – the Word (whatever that might mean) came into being as a kind of medium through which all else that has come to be was created. My sense is that misses the poetic thrust of this mystical writer. Rather, I understand John to have experienced that not only in the beginning of each and every experience we have, but in the middle and culmination as well, there is this mystery he identifies as “the Word.” But for most of us, most of the time, the beginning, middle and end of our experience is not experienced as of some mysterious Word (again, whatever that might mean). Rather the vast majority of our experiences are generated by, sustained by, and understood in terms of, fear (that is usually unconscious). Fear cannot only paralyze us, fear can thrust us into fight or spur us into a hasty retreat. Peter Levine, in his magisterial and at times elegantly written book on trauma, In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, offers a testament in part to the power of fear to compel and compromise us, body and soul. When some animals are threatened with death by a predator, such as an opossum, we commonly describe their paralyzed reaction as “playing dead.” But there is no play involved here at all. The overwhelmed nervous system is thrown into a last resort for survival, and all but shallow breathing shuts down as the brain stem takes control. Sometimes it works, and the predator loses interest. Sometimes it fails, and the opossum is some other creature’s meal. More often, the last-ditch survival mechanism of paralysis is not necessary. Rather, as the large and swift savannah cat attacks its prey, the hearts of the antelopes accelerate their beat, sweat pours forth, breathing becomes rapid, pupils dilate, and the animals instinctively run or actively defend. As humans, when our nervous systems become overwhelmed we can become catatonic. We don’t choose to become immobile. Rather, our system shuts down as a last-ditch effort to survive. As with our evolutionary relatives existing on the Serengeti, more often than not, such extreme reaction isn’t necessary. But all too often we experience our interactions of day-to-day life as if we were still striving to survive in the wild; at least that is how our experiences register in our nervous system. We have an interaction with our boss; we have an argument with our spouse; our daughter fails to arrive at home with the family car by 11 pm and now it is 2 in the morning; our parent is suffering from dementia. More often than not, before we are even aware, our hearts have quickened, our breathing stopped or accelerated, we sweat, our head aches, and we are primed to flee or quarrel. We feel compelled to at least do something to change what we currently experience as untenable. Fear, whether manifesting as flight or fight, expresses itself in and through the compulsion “to do” something to change what is. Ironically, we would rather die than not do, because we experience our non-doing as a kind of death by being overwhelmed by life. And so, fear compels us to find something we can do to change the circumstances we find to be too much to handle. We don’t know how to receive what life is presenting us. To take this one step further, fear, which surrounds and imbues our experience, has us convinced that the mystery we call God is not present in our frightening condition. We feel compelled to act in some way in order to get to a place where we hope God will be present. If God were present, fear-controlled reason concludes, then we would able to rest and let be where we are. To begin to get a sense of how pervasive fear is in Western culture, we need to recognize how thoroughly we have become a society of doers. We are utterly convinced that thru doing will we be saved. As I said, we would rather die than not do. To fail to do – and to not do does register in our beings as failure – is to leave us in the seemingly intolerable position of vulnerability and at the apparent whim of a capricious universe. Even more, in our fear, which compels us to be beings who try to control life, we reduce the mystery of God, the Beloved, into a divine-doer; just like us, only much bigger and much stronger, and invulnerable. All of which brings us back to the reforming experience and spiritual insight of the community in which the gospel of John was written. This vulnerable group, feeling besieged in a turn-of-the-century culture whose seams are somewhat frayed, somehow realizes that before fear, and more profound and powerful than fear, is their experience of the Word, holding everything they are undergoing: threat from Imperial Rome, discord with the Jewish Synagogue, tense relations with other fledgling communities of the early Christ movement. But what is meant by “the Word”? We hear that phrase and it sounds like some “thing.” In the beginning was some thing, some object, called “the Word.” This is an instance where way too much is lost in translation. The Hebrew dabar and the Greek logos connote not some thing, but a dynamic and vibrant mystery. We would do much better to say that “in the beginning was wording.” But that is so clumsy in English and still misses the mark. We draw closer by saying, “in the beginning was speaking.” Using the gerund, which is both a noun and a verb, helps us approach what John’s community was touching upon – a dynamic presence in their lives, always there. We can draw even closer to the true nature of this dynamic by expressing the realization poetically: “in the beginning there was singing from out of the Absolute depths.” When the Divine depths express, what arises is song. Life, John’s gospel is proclaiming, is a singing forth of Being. If you consider a note of music, we can perceive it as an inanimate mark of notation on a page. But as physics reminds us, any thing we observe can be appreciated as a particle or as a wave, so too a note of singing. Each note of life is a divine wave of Being. We, each and every creature, are notes of vibrant music. Creation itself is a symphony Being spontaneously composes moment-to-moment. The intimate quality of this music, however, invites us to experience this singing, so loving and so tender in its true nature, as divine cooing; like a mother humming softly and sweetly to her infant. Neither is really doing anything. They are not doers. They are fluidly participating in one another’s being as the song that is their common life resonates throughout their bodies. The opening words of John’s gospel are an invitation to grow into the wisdom of participating in life as song. Each and every creature that exists is a pulsating note; all things come into being as a wave of divine presence manifesting in unique sonorous beauty. We never know what movement will arise on the breath of the next intonation – a tragedy of Wagner, the joy of Beethoven, the mourning and loss of a Fitzgerald, the playful love of Ellington. We have no control over life’s spontaneous unfoldment. But however Being manifests, the breath of each note is a wave of Boundless Love; the presence within each note is always a tenor of Undying Compassion. The invitation we receive, regardless of the movement of the song, is to learn to participate in, is to learn how to sing, the irreplaceably unique song that is us. ~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. Read 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“. Question & Answer Sharon via the Internet, writes: Question: An Alabama politician just compared Judge Roy Moore’s “dating” of teenagers to the relationship of an adult Joseph to a teenaged Mary. What does the Bible actually say about Joseph and Mary’s ages? Answer: By Rev. David Felten Dear Sharon, The short answer is, “Nothing.” True, the historical and anthropological evidence suggests that people got married at younger ages back in the day. But outside the brief stories describing how each of them dealt with Mary’s unexpected pregnancy (Luke for Mary and Matthew for Joseph), the Gospels just don’t say much about Joseph and Mary’s everyday lives. But just because there’s nothing in the Bible about their ages hasn’t stopped theologians from speculating on the matter – especially when there are wobbly early church doctrines in need of shoring up. As early as the 2nd century CE, a developing reverence for the figure of Mary led to the creation of the doctrine of her “perpetual virginity,” the idea that Mary was always a virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus. This may seem all fine and good, but there’s a fly in that ointment. In Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55–56 (along with Galatians and 1 Corinthians), there are clear references to “Jesus’ brothers and sisters.” So, if the church was going to defend the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary, they had a problem. Where did Jesus’ brothers and sisters come from? Easy. Make Joseph an older man who had children from a previous marriage! Voila! These notions were bolstered by various non-canonical gospels written in the early centuries of the Church. The Protoevangelium of James, probably written around the end of the 2nd century, is one source of the stories suggesting that Joseph was older. At first, Joseph refuses to marry the girl, saying, “I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl. It also makes mention of Joseph’s sons: “And [Joseph] found a cave there, and led [Mary] into it; and leaving his two sons beside her, he went out to seek a midwife in the district of Bethlehem." Add to that the Gospel of Peter and other sources referring to an older, previously married Joseph and whew, Mary’s perpetual virginity is preserved. This narrative not only designates Jesus’ “brothers and sisters” as step-kin, but in a pre-Viagra age, also suggests that a decrepit old Joseph would have been unlikely to even have the capacity to compromise Mary’s virginal state. And that’s the mindset of many conventional Christians to this day. Ironically, most Conservative Christians would condemn the Protoevangelium of James and The Gospel of Peter as illegitimate non-canonical writings, not to be trusted. And yet the only mention of Joseph being an older guy with kids from a previous marriage is from these texts, NOT the New Testament. Oops. But none of this matters for pious blowhards who pronounce pompous claims about the Bible with the expectation that their political power naturally extends to grant them exalted theological credibility, as well. As you’ve mentioned, the latest example of pious blowhardery is one of Judge Roy Moore’s compatriots, Alabama State Auditor, Jim Zeigler. Yes, it’s true. He defended Moore by comparing the beleaguered candidate to Joseph, who he believes was a noble older man who took unto himself the teenaged Mary. So, says he, there’s no problem with Moore’s actions, claiming that it’s all “much ado about nothing,” even if the accusations are true. (?!?) So, despite what appears to be Moore’s increasingly obvious guilt, Zeigler and his ilk leave me asking a question that frequently comes to mind: just how gullible are self-proclaimed Conservative Christians? At the very least, how gullible do the people who claim to represent Conservative Christians think their constituents are? This is not a prejudiced generalization. According to the Tuscaloosa News, Zeigler was the former Chair of both the Conservative Christians of Alabama AND the conservative League of Christian Voters. He has officially, publicaly, and without question, been an official spokesperson for Conservative Christians. So let me ask one more question. How many of these conservative, Bible-believing Christians in Alabama are going to call out Jim Zeigler for misquoting the Bible for his own political gain? I reckon not many. Why? Because, although they claim to revere the Bible and follow its “inerrant truth,” they clearly don’t read it. Well, maybe Revelation. Daniel and John, too. OK, and parts of Genesis – and the juicy bits they claim are about how bad homosexuals are. But the rest? Not so much. The bottom line is that they don’t know enough about the Bible or history or theology to correct Jim Zeigler in his blatant, ignorant, child-molestation-supporting pomposity. He’s a white Republican male in a position of power. In Alabama, it’s clear that they can say or do whatever they want without consequences – even if what they say or do is demonstrably contrary to the very faith they claim to embrace (cf additional scandals involving the Governor and Speaker of the House). And while it now appears that Roy Moore’s wife faked continued support from 50 Alabama pastors, the silence from hapless Conservative Christians and their leaders is deafening. Suffice it to say that Jim Zeigler has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. Is he just another callous politician making a “hail Mary” reference to what he thinks is in the Bible in order to appeal to his low-information Conservative Christian base? After all, this guy’s stock-in-trade has been, in large part, his Christian bona fides. Unfortunately, whatever he thinks Christianity is about seems a far cry from what Jesus demonstrated in his teaching and actions. When it comes to the alleged molestation of teen girls, Zeigler can’t even seem to muster the empathy inherent in the Golden Rule, let alone a grasp of what the Bible actually says about Joseph and Mary. So here we have yet another cautionary tale supporting my conviction that if you don’t know what’s in your Bible, people like Jim Zeigler can (and will!) take advantage of you. They will make up anything they want about “what’s in the Bible” to support their own narrow political and cultural prejudices. And with no help from their totally compromised and culturally-accommodated pastors, people simply don’t know enough to call #BS or #fakenews. In situations like these, my dream is that some earnest reporter would know enough to ask a follow-up question like, “Mr Ziegler. Your statement claims to suggest that Joseph was an older man in a relationship with a teenage girl. That’s actually nowhere in the Bible. As a Conservative Christian, would you like to comment on why it’s OK to perpetuate something that’s not in the Bible for your own political gain?” Ahh, to dream. Ziegler says of Moore’s situation, “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.” That’s right, just another example of the unusual dynamics of pious Conservative Christians misrepresenting the Bible and defending the authority of older white men to do whatever they want without consequence. I can only hope that Judge Roy Moore’s run for Senate is doomed. Even before the latest revelations of alleged molestation and sexual assault, Moore’s record is a debris-field of oppression, exclusion, and prejudice that lays bare his reactionary, theocratic, and hateful agenda. I suspect that someone like Alabama State Auditor, Jim Zeigler, is too far down the rabbit hole to ever be anything but what he is. But the people of Alabama – especially the Conservative Christians of Alabama – still have a voice. Rejecting such obvious unchristian behavior and hypocrisy seems like a no-brainer. But it will take courage from pastors and others to rise above partisan politics and take a stand for basic human dignity. Thanks for your question – and don’t forget to vote (early and often!) on December 12th! ~ Rev. David Felten Read and share online here About the Author David Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”. A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children. ___________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited Were there twelve disciples? – Was Mary Magdalene one of them? Dear Friends, Sometimes I receive a question that requires a whole column to answer. Such was the case with a question received late this summer. I am happy to devote this column to the answer and hope that you find it worthwhile. ......................................................~ John Shelby Spong John Schwally, a journalist film maker in New York City, currently doing research for a film on the future of Christianity writes: “In my research, I have come across some pretty wild propositions regarding Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife and apostle. Some of them are quite convincing. Your June 9 column entitled “The Ultimate Source of Anti-Semitism,” seems to have solved a mystery of sorts for me. The Church does not recognize Mary Magdalene as part of the “original 12″ apostles. Well, I have been trying to reconcile the claims that Mary Magdalene was in fact an apostle but how does that work when the number 12 has been consistent in all the writings through the centuries. The answer: Judas is a fiction! By writing Judas into the scenario, the early Jewish Christians were able to separate themselves from the Orthodox Jews under attack from the Romans. At the same time, they were able to relieve themselves of the embarrassment of having a woman, Mary Magdalene, as a leader in their community, all the while keeping with the number of 12 Apostles of Jesus! I was wondering if you thought this theory has any validity.” Dear John, Your theory makes so many assumptions that I need to separate them out and deal with them one by one. First, Mary Magdalene is clearly a significant figure in the Jesus movement. Without doubt she was the leader of the women disciples. The women disciples were not visible in the New Testament until the story of the crucifixion and resurrection scenes where they suddenly emerge, perhaps because we are told that all “the (male) disciples have forsaken him and fled.” However, the texts of Mark (15:41), Matthew (27:55) and Luke (23:49) all attest that these women have followed Jesus ‘all the way from Galilee.’ That is, they have always been part of his movement, but, as was the fate of women in that patriarchal society, they were not thought worthy of mention until they became unavoidable. The second thing needing to be examined is what kind of women are these that they were following an itinerant band of men led by an itinerant teacher. Under the prevailing social norms of that place and time, these women could be only one of two things: the wives of the men or prostitutes. Third, Mary Magdalene is certainly portrayed in the gospels, written between 70 and 100 C. E., as a major force in the Jesus Movement. She is the only person that all four gospels agree was at the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. The Fourth Gospel, which is the only gospel that claims to be based on a first hand eye witness account, says that she was the only mourner at the tomb. This gospel also portrays her as having immediate access to Peter and the other disciples, who were presumably hiding for their own safety after the crucifixion. She knows where they are, goes immediately to them and is granted entrance. Fourth, in this Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene is said to have referred to Jesus with two rather familiar forms of address. To the angels she was said to have answered their question of why she was weeping with the words, “They have taken away ‘my Lord’ and I do not know where they have laid him.” ‘My Lord’ was the title of respect a rabbinic student might use for a revered rabbi. It is also a common title a Jewish woman might use in reference to her husband. Later, when she believed herself to be confronting the Risen Christ, she is said to have responded to him with the title ‘Rabboni’ which is once again the kind of intimate respectful title a woman might use for her revered husband. Fifth, also in John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as demanding from the person she thinks to be the gardener, not just access but ownership of the body of the deceased Jesus. “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will go and take him away.” Once again, in Jewish society of the first century, for a woman to demand access to the deceased body of a Jewish male would be quite out of bounds unless she was the nearest of kin. When I put these things together, I think they point to a strong possibility that Mary Magdalene might have been the wife of Jesus, an idea that I published in a book entitled Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth and the Place of Women in a Male Dominated Church. This book came out ten years before the Da Vinci Code! There is also some reason for thinking that such an idea would be increasingly uncomfortable when the Church began to move into the dualistic world of Greek thinking that regarded bodies and flesh as something generally evil, and the body and flesh of a woman particularly evil. From the earliest days there was increasing theological pressure on Christian thinkers to see Jesus as the sinless one who, like the sacrificed lamb in the ritual of the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, would be the perfect sacrifice to God. That is Jesus, like the sacrificial lamb, had to be physically perfect with none of his bones broken and morally perfect or, as it would be written about him in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he was “tempted in all things and yet without sin.” Perhaps this assumption is what helped to create the story from the cross, which states that Jesus’ legs were not broken because he had already died. These same expectations would also lead to the suppression of any knowledge about his marriage to Mary Magdalene should they have been married. I think a strong case can be made for the fact that Mary Magdalene’s authority came from her relationship with Jesus as his wife and that is why she was close to his disciples. The next assumption that I think needs to be challenged is that there were ever twelve apostles. That number is certainly present in the tradition and is reflected in the gospels, but as we shall see it was always a rather unstable tradition. Was that an historic memory or was it an apologetic attempt to portray Jesus as the founder of a new Israel, a title by which many in the early church began to call the Jesus Movement? The old Israel had twelve tribes who were said to have been formed by the twelve sons of Jacob, whose name had been changed to Israel after he wrestled with an angel by the river Jabbok. So the New Israel must also have twelve patriarchs who were the disciples of their founder, Jesus. There are many other traditions in the ancient world where religious leaders had twelve disciples who may have been likened to the twelve signs of the zodiac. I am therefore suspicious of the historicity of the number twelve. Even in the New Testament there is confusion about that number for two primary reasons. First the gospels do not agree on who the twelve were. Mark (3:13 -19) and Matthew (10: 1-4) have one list while Luke (6:12-16) and Acts (1:12-14) have another. John never says who the twelve were but has names like Nathaniel who was closely identified with the Jesus movement but who was not on anybody else’s list. In John’s last resurrection story (Chapter 21) he lists only seven disciples. Both Luke and John make reference to a disciple named Judas who was ‘not Iscariot.’ Matthew and Mark seem to know of no such person. If the earliest records we have do not agree on who constituted the twelve apostles, one is forced to wonder about the historicity of the number itself. If the number twelve was added to the tradition after the fact then confusion as to who constituted the twelve would be understandable. John may well have been leaning on an earlier tradition when he used the number seven instead of twelve. My second reason for being suspicious of this number is that even when we have a list of twelve, at least half of them are included by name only. The only apostolic details that we have that would give us any biographical data would be on Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew and Thomas. All of the rest are faceless names, necessary to round out the number twelve but not essential to any gospel story line. So I would feel no need to count Magdalene as a disciple in order to restore the number to twelve after the defection of Judas, as if that number had some real meaning. It is worth noting that Luke, writing in the Book of Acts, does say that Judas had to be replaced and that was done by the choice of Matthias, but we need to keep in mind that the Book of Acts was not written until the 10th decade at the very earliest. Given the social norms and the way women were defined in first century Jewish society, it is hard to see how a woman might become part of a male group of disciples. Recall that Mark in chapter six, refers to Jesus’ brothers by name but only says he also had ‘sisters.’ That plural word means more than one but the sisters were deemed not important enough to have their names recorded. Thank you for your question and your interest. I hope you will find these comments helpful in your pursuit of a new understanding of this woman whom the Church has tended to trash throughout history. There is no biblical evidence that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute unless you assume that all of these camp following women were prostitutes. I don’t think that case can be made historically. ~ John Shelby Spong Originally posted September 22, 2004 Announcements How would you like to receive a Digital Version of Bishop John Shelby Spong's book The Birth of Jesus for free? ProgressiveChristianity.org, our partner organization that administer's this weekly newsletter, is offering a free copy to anyone who donates $25 or more - now through Thanksgiving as part of their annual campaign. Click here and receive your free copy when you help support ProgressiveChristianity.org's mission to be a portal for all spiritual believers and the authors, scholars, theologians and liturgists who share their resources for the progressive spiritual journey.

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Salmon: Your help is needed
by William Salmon 15 Nov '17

15 Nov '17

When you have questions, please send me an email or give me a call: 1-785-825-1221. Inner Peace, Bill Salmon

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Re: [Oe List ...] Death of Peggy Heng
by Sherwood Shankland 14 Nov '17

14 Nov '17

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Death of Peggy Heng
by Dharmalingam Vinasithamby 14 Nov '17

14 Nov '17

Dear colleagues, Peggy Heng(Heng Tsu Chen) died yesterday in Sydney, Australia. She was part of the KLReligious House in the 70s and was a member of the Sahaja Yoga group in Sydneywhen she died. Sahaja Yoga has posted a lovely photo tribute to her onFacebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXeZE7eK_E8&feature=youtu.be regardsDharmalingam

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FW: Death of Peggy Heng (Tsu Chen)
by John & Robyn Hutchinson 14 Nov '17

14 Nov '17

Hi Mary and Dharma, Yes my friend Priya also from Sahaja Yoga alerted me this morning and I immediately sent to Dharma. Dharma thanks for sharing on the lists. Tsu Chen and we met up several times over many years, in Australia. In much more recent times Tsu Chen came to work with me and our school with Priya doing Sahaja Yoga classes within Lewisham school over a number of years. Such a small world! This Sahaja Yoga work was an underlying contribution to this schools image change journey! Priya has played a very caring role over many months looking after Tsue Chen as part of the Sahaja Yoga family. Tsu Chen will be well remembered. Grace and Peace Robyn and John -----Original Message----- From: John & Robyn Hutchinson [mailto:rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au] Sent: Tuesday, 14 November 2017 2:07 PM To: 'John & Robyn Hutchinson' Subject: FW: [Oe List ...] Death of Peggy Heng -----Original Message----- From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Mary Kurian D'Souza via OE Sent: Tuesday, 14 November 2017 12:35 PM To: Order Ecumenical Community Cc: Mary Kurian D'Souza Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Death of Peggy Heng Oh Dharma Thanks for sharing this. Tsu Chen was my friend in Chicago. I got to know her at ITI In Mumbai. I can still hear her record playing and Tsu Chen pushing her glasses up her nose. Wanda and I went to see her off when she left the Order I wish she had not left I last saw her in Pune when she came for a Sahara yoga event. Did not have time to connect deeply. The wonder of the people we met and worked with Mary Sent from my iPhone On 14-Nov-2017, at 4:33 AM, Dharmalingam Vinasithamby via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Dear colleagues, Peggy Heng (Heng Tsu Chen) died yesterday in Sydney, Australia. She was part of the KL Religious House in the 70s and was a member of the Sahaja Yoga group in Sydney when she died. Sahaja Yoga has posted a lovely photo tribute to her on Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXeZE7eK_E8&feature=youtu.be regards Dharmalingam _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] 11/09/17, Felton/Spong/Fox: A New Template for Religion: A Conversation with Michael Morwood, Part 3 - Worship, Prayer, & the Other Side of the Story; Spong revisited
by Zoe Barley 10 Nov '17

10 Nov '17

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Ran my 20th Marathon on Sunday
by Herman Greene 10 Nov '17

10 Nov '17

Remember that song, "Running on an endless marathon"? I, now 72, ran my 20th marathon on Sunday, the Raleigh City of Oaks Marathon. I've been running one a year and will run the Boston Marathon in April 2018, perhaps my last. I finished in 4:29:44 and was first in my age group in the top half of both men and all runners. Remember that song about "Dying on the March"? Herman __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 <(919)%20942-4358> (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com

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Re: [Oe List ...] Ran my 20th Marathon on Sunday
by Del Morrill 09 Nov '17

09 Nov '17

Marvelous Herman. What an achievement! From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Herman Greene via OE Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 5:14 AM To: OE Listserv <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Cc: Herman Greene <hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com> Subject: [Oe List ...] Ran my 20th Marathon on Sunday Remember that song, "Running on an endless marathon"? I, now 72, ran my 20th marathon on Sunday, the Raleigh City of Oaks Marathon. I've been running one a year and will run the Boston Marathon in April 2018, perhaps my last. I finished in 4:29:44 and was first in my age group in the top half of both men and all runners. Remember that song about "Dying on the March"? Herman __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 <tel:(919)%20942-4358> (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com <mailto:hfgreenenc@gmail.com>

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Baylor University's new president is a woman
by Jann McGuire 09 Nov '17

09 Nov '17

I, too, appreciated Marshall's report. Thought this article might be of interest. https://feminismandreligion.com/2017/11/09/high-stakes-for-women-in-leaders… Grace and peace, Jann McGuire

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11/09/17, Felton/Spong/Fox: A New Template for Religion: A Conversation with Michael Morwood, Part 3 - Worship, Prayer, & the Other Side of the Story; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 09 Nov '17

09 Nov '17

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR A New Template for Religion: A Conversation with Michael Morwood, Part 3 Worship, Prayer, & the Other Side of the Story Rev. David Felten What follows in interview form is the final installment of three columns inspired by a presentation Michael Morwood offered at the Common Dreams Conference in Brisbane, Queensland, in 2016. In this final segment, Morwood offers a new perspective on worship and prayer – along with some concluding thoughts on religion in general and recommendations on a way forward. ____________________________________________ David Felten: We’ve moved away from using the word “worship” in our local faith community, opting for words like “celebration” or “gathering” instead. The concept of “worship” has so much baggage: all those ancient formalities and royal protocols that don’t fit post-Enlightenment ways of thinking – yet people are somehow loathe to give it up. Michael Morwood: Personally, I would stop using the word “worship,” too. The notion of “worship” belongs to an old paradigm, an outdated template for religion. I was in Canada not long ago conducting a weekend for a progressive United Church community. The audience was very on-side with what I presented. At the end of the weekend, I asked some of the community leaders, “Why, with such a progressive community, do you have the large ‘WORSHIP HERE 10:00 am SUNDAY’ sign outside the church?” I was met with puzzled looks, as if to say, “Why wouldn’t we have this sign?” So I asked some questions: .....• Worship whom? .....• For what reason? .....• What do you imagine is at the other end of your worship? A deity taking notice? A deity taking some delight in homage being paid? .....• Is your Sunday gathering for God’s sake? .....• Where did this imagination come from? I’d ask the same questions regarding “the Mass” and what Catholics imagine “Mass” is all about (but I don’t get invitations to Roman Catholic parishes these days!). Overall, I prefer to use words like “liturgy” or “service” for a new template. The roots of the word “liturgy” (leit, people; ergon, work), means the “work of the people.” For me, this understanding of liturgy expands beyond ritual to mean participation in a sacred or divine action. David Felten: So what’s the “work of the people” and the “divine action” you have in mind? Michael Morwood: I think our primary task is to gather around the story of Jesus and seek to understand its full implications for all human interactions. Our challenge is to let it reveal to us the truth of who we are, to challenge us to commit ourselves to being the best possible human expressions of the Great Mystery, and to do this as faithfully and as courageously as Jesus did. And none of this has anything to do with reception of a sacred object, with a priesthood with special powers, or being “fed” at an altar – it certainly has nothing to do with Jesus shedding his blood for the sins of the world. It has nothing to do with singing songs to or addressing prayers to a listening deity. What it does include is: .....• Remembrance of Jesus and of others who shared his vision .....• Awareness of the presence/power within us .....• Commitment to working for a better world. David Felten: So, what about the songs we sing and our liturgical prayers? What about the efficacy of the prayers we offer in our faith-sharing groups? Michael Morwood: What are we being asked to imagine when we ask God to listen? When we thank God? When we address God with personal pronouns? We know where this imagination comes from. The question is, how does this image resonate once the notion of a “God in the heavens” has been abandoned? By all means, let us sing hymns and address prayers to “God” that suggest this divine “being” is listening in and taking note. But, let us do so mindful that whatever words we use are metaphor and poetry. They’re not to be taken literally, but as a means of giving expression to longing, pain, gratitude, joy – all those movements our minds and hearts struggle to convey otherwise. Then let us embrace one of the key challenges that faces us today: to shape prayers (the hymns may take a lot longer!) that affirm a “presence” within and among us. We need a growing collection of metaphors and images that help develop our awareness that this “presence” is not only here with us in the ordinariness of our everyday lives but challenges us to live out the best possible human expression of this “Great Mystery.” David Felten: For as long as I can remember, one of my mentors, Bill Nelson, has advocated that we simply stop using the word “God” altogether. We need images that are free from so many centuries of the theistic and human-centric God that is “out there” somewhere. Michael Morwood: Exactly! In practice, stop addressing prayers to “God.” Just stop doing it. If you still practice a traditional style of spoken prayer, all it takes is the determination to not begin as if you’re speaking to a theistic God. Try it and see what happens! I resolved to do this 15 years ago. It resulted in my book, Praying a New Story which Spirituality & Practice included in its list of “Best Spiritual Books” of 2004. With regard to their own private prayer, many people ask me, “If I let go of the idea of praying to “God,” how do I pray now?” One way I think about it is remembering a Syrian monk known as “the golden speaker.” St John Damascene was born and raised in Damascus in the early 8th century, but he’s given the church words that have been carried down through the centuries: “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” Today, if we substitute “great mystery” or “power” or other similar concepts for the word “God,” the definition still holds – understanding it to mean raising our minds and hearts to a presence here, all around us; in the depths of our being. So a key concept for any prayer becomes “awareness.” The goal of my personal prayer is to deepen my awareness, to be conscious of the reality that I embody this “great mystery” in human form. It’s also important to acknowledge that my personal prayer is not for God’s sake. It is for my sake, it is meant to change me. Someone recently asked me, “Can prayer change the world?” and I said, “Of course! If prayer is intended to change us, then we can change the world.” Otherwise we become trapped in the religious cop-out version of prayer: “Let’s leave the fate of the world in God’s hands.” I think Jesus had the same conviction about personal prayer. It’s what motivated his ministry to “the crowd.” He wanted people to become aware of the power and the presence within them and use it to change the world. That was his dream. What a pity that this fundamental stance of Jesus has been buried beneath a layer of prayer asking God to “deliver us from evil.” That’s not God’s task; it’s our task. David Felten: Well that should give the proponents of conventional Christianity heartburn. The Church has thrived for centuries convincing people that they are but loathsome sinners and depraved worms, incapable of any good without Jesus vouching for them. It sounds like your new paradigm puts some pretty high expectations on us lowly humans. Michael Morwood: The major shift in my theological thinking and prayer life in the past 25 years has stemmed from a growing – and a completely new – appreciation of what it means to be human. Much of my appreciation is grounded in the scientific story of our origins in stardust and the four billion years of atoms undergoing transformation after transformation until the 60 trillion atoms that are Michael Morwood enable me tell the story of who and what we really are. Now that’s a truly remarkable story. But what I find just as remarkable is to have discovered that throughout human history the other side of this story – without the great scientific story we have today to back it up – has made itself known. Call it “enlightenment”; call it whatever you will, but there has been this constant awareness, insight, revelation – in both religious and non-religious people – of an awareness of a power, an awesome reality beyond our imagination, within and among us, a presence that binds together everyone and everything. Rumi, the great Muslim scholar, teacher, and poet said it well 800 years ago, “You are the fearless guardian of Divine Light, so come, return to the root of the root of your own soul…”. “Why are you so enchanted by this world when a mine of gold lies within you? Open your eyes and come, return to the root of the root of your own soul.” Here is the proper focus for religion, today and in the future. Here is where religion can get beyond dogmatism, thought control, the disregard for common decency, and claims of exclusive access to the divine. Jesus is not alone in urging men and women to “return to the root of the root of your own soul” and use what is discovered there to create a profoundly better human community. And here is why the “Christ” religion needs to change its thinking about Jesus so dramatically: Jesus is not and was not a god-figure essentially different from the rest of us because only he could gain access to God’s dwelling place. Rather, he presents a movement, a presence, a reality – a great mystery – that is within every woman, man, and child. That is the good news that needs to be proclaimed and acted upon. David Felten: So what’s next? Can the Church – can we – actually change our thinking? Michael Morwood: Thirty years ago I wrote that if I were to recommend one book for Catholics to read, it would be Karl Rahner’s The Shape of the Church to Come, written in 1974. Rahner is regarded as one of the greatest Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century – and while much of his writing is too academic for the people I had in mind, this book is a gem from such an academic. Rahner wrote: “Our present situation is one of transition … to a Church made up of those who have struggled against their environment in order to reach a personally clear and explicitly responsible decision of faith. This will be the Church of the future or there will be no Church at all.” “It seems to me that the courage to abandon positions no longer tenable means asking modestly, realistically, and insistently, whether it is always possible to take with us on this march in to the Church’s future all the fine fellows whose out of date mentality is opposed to a march into an unknown future … we shall also estrange, shock, and scandalize not a few who feel at home only in the Church as they have been accustomed to see it in the past.” And, he writes, “If we are honest we must admit that we are to a terrifying extent a spiritually lifeless Church.” Overall, Rahner lamented the failure of the Church to address the life experience and questions of the faithful. And along with this failure, he said we fail to proclaim Jesus “vigorously.” We neglect, he wrote, to start with “the experience of Jesus” and we talk about Jesus and God “without any real vitality.” Rahner’s words inspired me 30 years ago when I was naïve enough to think that institutional Roman Catholicism could and would change. The ensuing 30 years have taken me on a journey I could never have envisioned – not in my wildest dreams! I’m not so naïve now, but his words still inspire me to work for a more relevant, dynamic, realistic faith or spirituality, faithful to what Jesus really believed and was ready to die for. Theologically, I think we’re living through the greatest theological challenges the “Christ” religion has ever experienced: the old template, used for the past two thousand years, is hopelessly outdated. At the same time, I believe this new template offers a way ahead for humanity – the opportunity for vitality, for engagement with peoples’ lives and questions, for engagement with the exciting scientific knowledge we have on hand, for wonder and appreciation for being human, and a way to bring the message of Jesus – and other men and women of spiritual insight – to a world that is in desperate need of a new template to heal the harm and divisions caused by religion. I love working with this new template. It has proven to generate just the kind of excitement and challenge that opens up the possibilities and dreams that a vital future demands of us. — Rev. David Felten with Michael Morwood About Michael Morwood With over 40 years’ experience as a sought-after retreat leader and educator, Michael Morwood is well known around the world. Bishop John Shelby Spong writes: “Michael Morwood…is raising the right and obvious questions that all Christians must face. He provides fresh and perceptive possibilities for a modern and relevant faith.” With a dozen books to his name (two of which were banned before he resigned from the Catholic priesthood), Morwood brings an extensive background in spirituality to what he sees as the urgent need to reshape Christian thinking for a new millennium. Be sure to visit Michael Morwood’s website by clicking HERE. ~ Rev. David Felten About the Author David Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”. A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large. David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet. David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children. Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Roland from Sydney, writes: Question: How can the clergy educate its members into contemporary theology and attract back the church alumni without alienating the aging conservatives that finance the local church? Answer: By Rev. Matthew Fox Dear Roland, Thank you for your question. I think it is a very big one as it poses many issues of real importance such as the relationship between generations that is often problematic but especially in our time since we have one foot still in the modern era (most of our institutions are still there including the Reformation churches) and another foot in the postmodern era (where so many young people are located and where pre-modern wisdom is welcomed, not shunned as during modern times). Science and Education also find themselves in this ‘in between’ place today. The British Scientist Rupert Sheldrake told me recently that at Oxford and Cambridge today there is a huge gulf between the professor class and the students specifically around the topic of religion or spirituality. Most professors surrendered all interest in religion generations ago but today’s students are eager to learn more about it. I have written about the difference between modern and postmodern consciousness at the end of my short book on A New Reformation. You might find some food for thought there. It is, I think, imperative for the survival of our species that we learn anew to develop intergenerational wisdom. This means elders must wake up to their calling as elders and must learn to sit down and listen to the younger generation. The benefit will be mutual I am sure. It also means that it is past time to establish rites of passage for elders to assist elders to wake up to their responsibilities. Our secular culture likes to put elders out to pasture after they have passed the age of peak consumer capitalism and are “retired.” I insist however that we retire the obscene word “retirement” and replace it with “refirement.” What we are talking about here—recovering true eldership—could constitute a whole new example of refirement in our churches. In our book on Occupy Spirituality Adam Bucko (who worked for 15 very fruitful years with young adults living on the streets of NYC) and myself interviewed many young adults (ages 21-33) and one of the questions we asked was about elders in their lives. 98% said: “We want elders but can’t find them…..And the few we do find talk too much.” Elders have to get off the golf course and out of their couches and/or playing the stock market and make themselves available to young people. The young today are facing issues of climate change and eco-destruction and gross have/have not discrepancies that are unprecedented. A moral and survival imperative exists to radically change education, religion, politics, economics, art, farming and energy resourcing on this planet. We need all the wisdom they can get. The young and old can and need to put their heads and hearts together in this search for wisdom. In an elder rite of passage ceremony that Creation Spirituality Communities conducted a year ago the young adults assisted in creating it. Of course the young also need rites of passage (and confirmation, I’m sorry to report, rarely cuts the mustard). Our Cosmic Masses, going on now for over 23 years, have proven very valuable for bringing young and old together in a post-modern form for celebrating Liturgy, one that incorporates post-modern art forms (and pre-modern ones) including dance, dj, vj, rap and more. It is not enough that elder worshippers are “at home” or “comfortable” with their (modern) forms of worship that are pre-packaged in Liturgical books. Jesus never said “Blessed are the comfortable” (neither did the Buddha). The question is this: How will future generations—including their grandchildren and great grandchildren—pray? It will not be from merely reading from books and sitting in pews and daring the preacher to keep them awake—that is all very modern because the modern age emerged with the invention of the printing press. It must include the body; the senses; beauty; and grieving together. Yes, there is much to grieve as well as to give birth to. Our new Order of the Sacred Earth, which launches this month, is another effort to bring old and young together around a new (and ancient) vision of spirituality in practice. The book’s subtitle is “Intergenerational Love in Action.” You might check it out on line as well. Best wishes in lighting the fire, Rev. Matthew Fox Read and share online here About the Author Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 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. 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. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved and Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest A new school, adopting the pedagogy Fox created and practiced for over 35 years, is opening in Boulder, Colorado this September. Called the Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality it is being run by graduates of his doctoral program and will offer MA, D Min and Doctor of Spirituality degrees. See www.foxinstitute-cs.org __________________________________________________ Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Bible, Corporal Punishment and Human Guilt - Part 6 If God is not a punishing and rescuing deity, then who or what is God? If the biblical explanation of the source of evil is no longer operative, then from where does evil come? What is its origin? Can the way evil is viewed be changed or transformed? Can we human beings escape our need to view ourselves negatively, which is the interior situation that makes the punishing God necessary? If the task of the Christian faith is not about rescuing and restoring the fallen sinner, then what is the task of this religious system? If behavior control is not the Church's primary social agenda, then so much of the way we portray the content of the Christian faith simply falls away. Can Christianity survive without its doctrines of Atonement, and Incarnation, both of which hang on the sin and rescue themes? Is there any other way to see the divine presence of God in the life of Jesus other than to view Jesus as the incarnate sinless one who entered from the realm of heaven into the arena of the fall to pay the price God required for our sins and thus to rescue us from that fall? Can we dismiss once and for all the ancient Christian symbol of Jesus as a blood offering, a human sacrifice required by God? I believe that we can and must. This riddance will furthermore, cut the ground out from under the manner in which violence has been justified on the basis of this religious system. It is thus a reformation eagerly to be sought. The deconstruction begins by recognizing that the story, which opens the Bible, is not an accurate interpreter of life as we know it. It is a bad, false and inoperative myth. There never was a time, either literally or metaphorically, when there was a perfect and finished creation. That was an inaccurate idea that has helped to develop a guilt producing, dependency seeking, neurotic religion. Whatever else we know about creation, we are now certain that it is an evolving and still incomplete process. So there was no perfect beginning, no Garden of Eden and no first man and woman. We have evolved. We have not fallen from perfection. 'Original Sin' must go! With it goes the superstructure of doctrine, dogma, and theology. The psalmist was wrong. We were not created a little lower than the angels. Rather, we have evolved into a status that is just a little higher than the apes. It is a vastly different perspective. There is an enormous contrast between whether we are fallen creatures or incomplete creatures. Our humanity is not fallen, it is incomplete. The fact is we do not yet know what it means to be human since that is a status we have not yet fully achieved. What human life needs is not to be saved it is to be called and empowered to enter a new being. The idea that Jesus had to pay the price of our sinfulness becomes an idea that is bankrupt. When that idea collapses, so do all of those violent, controlling and guilt producing tactics that are so deeply part of traditional Christianity. The dominos begin to topple. Baptism, understood as the sacramental act to wash from the baby the stain of that original fall, becomes inoperative. The Eucharist, developed as a liturgical act to reenact the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that paid the price of our sinfulness, becomes empty of meaning. Those disciplinary tactics, from not sparing the rod with our children to the use of shame, guilt and fear to control the behavior of childlike adults, become violations of our life. They apply the wrong therapy to the wrong diagnosis. The uses of afterlife symbols to motivate behavior, by promising either eternal reward or eternal punishment, lose their credibility. When the plug is pulled on the definition of human life as something infected by the sin of the fall, then the whole superstructure of Christian doctrine is revealed as a human control system. That is when we will recognize that Christianity will either change or die! If change is to be adopted, it has to be so total and so radical, that many will call it impossible. It would be easier they will say to build an entirely new religious system than it would be to seek to reform anything this totally. They may be right, but I am not yet convinced of that. The Christianity of the catacombs in the first century of the Church's life could never have envisioned its future being capable of producing either Christendom or its dominating cathedrals. Yet the Christians of the 13th century looked back and saw as their ancestors the Christians of the Catacombs. Our task is thus not to build tomorrow's church. That is something into which we have to live a day at a time. Our task is rather to face the need for radical change and take the first step necessary to erect a totally new foundation. That step, I believe, comes in the acknowledgement of our evolutionary origins and dismissing any suggestion that sin, inadequacy and guilt are the definitions with which we were born. We must also rid ourselves simultaneously of the idea that the world was created for human beings, or that the planet earth is somehow different or special in the universe. Anthropocentrism is a product of a pre-evolutionary mind set. We human beings are simply the self-conscious form of life that has emerged out of the evolutionary soup. We are kin to both the apes and the cabbages. Homo sapiens were not made to dominate the world, but to enrich it by living out our role in a radically interdependent world. We might be a dead end in the evolutionary process, like the dinosaur, destined for extinction. But we also might be the bridge to a brilliant future that none of us can yet imagine. Our task is first simply to be what we are, and then to adapt and finally to be a link to that emerging new being. That is quite different from the role generally assigned to human beings in the ongoing story of our religious teachings. Whence then comes this evil that we see it every day? It rises not from a fall, mythical or otherwise, but from the incompleteness of the evolutionary process. It is not appropriate then to wallow in our inadequacy or to accept as our due being denigrated by religion or having our behavior controlled or our guilt expanded. What we need is the power to take the next step into a new and more complete humanity, to transcend our limits, to walk beyond our insecure humanity. We need to face the trauma of self-consciousness, the self-centeredness of that hysterical struggle for survival that leads to the erection of security systems, which finally destroy our emerging humanity. We need to see the evil things we do to one another as the result of our incompleteness. This evil cannot be controlled by threats or by discipline, parental or divine. Security can never finally be built on violence. To be 'saved' does not mean to be rescued. It means to be empowered to be something we have not yet been able to be. Is there any role for Jesus in this new vision of reality? Does the Christian story finally die in this ditch? I do not think so. Jesus emerges rather as a symbol for a humanity that is not defined as fallen or sinful. It is a humanity that is portrayed as so whole, so complete; it is experienced as God infused. Jesus cannot be a divine visitor from the heavenly realm. As John A. T. Robinson argued some fifty years ago, Jesus cannot be "A cuckoo inserted into the nest of humanity." He was created out of the gene pool of humanity. Our doorway into divinity must be found on this path, since there is no other. We are beginning to understand that divinity is a human concept that can only be found in humanity. I see in Jesus one so radically human and free, so whole and complete that the power of life, the force of the Universe that I call God, becomes visible and operative in him and through him. It is a new way to travel theologically. It has been built on a new premise about the origins of life itself. It leads me ultimately back to that original assertion on which later theology would be built: somehow, in some way, through some means, God was in Christ and that this God presence can still be met in the depths of our humanity. Incarnational and Trinitarian doctrines were necessitated in traditional Christianity by the premise of the fall. God alone could overcome the fall. Jesus, perceived as the rescuer, had to be divine since he accomplished this task. When the fall is dismissed, traditional Christology cannot help but go with it and a new Christianity must emerge, as a phoenix rising from the ashes of the past. It will be based on the call to wholeness, the power of love and the enhancement of being. That is obviously not all that can be said on this subject, but it is as far as space allows me to go in this column. I am content now only to expose the negativity in the terrible texts that have for so long fed the neurotic human need to justify both suffering and violence as our due, as something earned by the fall into sin over which we had no control. There is surely a better way than this to love God with one's heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. There is also surely a better way to speak of Christ as the "human face of God," in whom we meet the source of life, the source of love and the ground of being. That is the Christ I seek and that is the Christ to whom I am still powerfully drawn. ~ John Shelby Spong Originally published July 21, 2004 Announcements 5-Day Intensive: The Reinvention of Work with Matthew Fox Matthew Fox leads the 5-day intensive, “The Reinvention of Work,” at the Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality in Boulder, CO - November 13th - 17th. The readings and discussions and occasional guests who have reworked their professions will examine these important questions: How do we infiltrate our work worlds with values that inspire sustainability? We will call on teachings from various spiritual traditions for their wisdom on work, its meaning and deeper purposes. Click here for more information/registration

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