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Witness: New year and an opportunity to reflect
by Lawrence Philbrook 20 Jan '14

20 Jan '14

Dear Colleagues I sent a note 3 days ago it is attached just in case. some have already answered and do not need to do so again. Jim Wiegel converted it into a survey monkey so I can tabulate the data more easily https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ReflectontheJourney * The first two pages of question invite you to share briefly about your journey as I have shared about mine * The third page are the questions if you want to skip ahead Thank you for you sharing With respect, Larry Lawrence Philbrook, Certified ToP Facilitator CPF Director Institute of Cultural Affairs Taiwan www.icatw.com <http://www.icatw.com> Tel:8862 2871 3150 Skype: icalarry In about 10 days begins the year of the horse. For me it will be the beginning of my 60^th year in the Chinese calendar, I am beginning my second cycle of the Chinese Calendar in January 2015 so I have a year to get ready. I joined the ICA/order first when I was 10 and again when I was 16. The three things that drew me to it the second time were: ·Living a life of service to the world ·Conscious intention to understand my self /others and to work toward living a life of self evolving discipline ·Developing or finding and practicing methodologies, models, and tools that can used and shared to promote a more human existence in communities or organizations. I often check myself to see if I am maintaining service as a priority and have changed my path to feel more aligned. For many years I focused on the third, "developing and practicing methodologies", with the second coming in only as insisted on by my colleagues. Twenty years ago, colleagues suggested I go to a Vippasana retreat in Igatpuri, Maharashtra, India -- near our old project in Vaviharsh. This retreat was followed very quickly by my first experience with M. Scott Peck's community building process which is a deeply reflective structure. I experienced a reconnection with spirit and a reconnection with my vocation. Everything changed, it was like putting back on my glasses after several years of working without them. I did not realize what I missed until I had it. What had been missing was my ability/willingness to reflect with others on my interior or spirit and that of the group. This has led me to twenty wonderful years working with colleagues at what I have considered a much more profound level striving in each encounter to hold the space for dialogue and deeper exploration based on the wisdom of each member (including listening to my own voice). In the past few years I have been working with several exciting communities exploring leadership development and organizational change: Appreciative Inquiry, Strength Based leadership, Theory U are examples, constantly striving to combine this with our work in participatory process, contradictional thinking and image change. I feel I'm on the edge of a breakthrough that won't quite come. This is a breakthrough to re-integrating individual reflective disciplines with community/organizational transformation while developing operational structures. I worked with Evelyn Philbrook, Dick and Gail West to develop a series of questions to ask people so they can contribute to our thinking of what is needed, here is our first draft: 1.Fast-changing world: Where do you experience the greatest need for transformation? 2.Already happened: What event/change has happened recently that you are pleased about? What are you most grateful for which has brought you to this point and which you see being called for in the future? 3.Leading the change: What new do you see is needed now in the arena of leadership -- challenges and opportunities? 4.Inventing from the future: What do you sense is coming that demands change now? 5.World and your current organization: If you were all-powerful what are the first changes you would make? 6.Not yet recognized: What other question(s) should we be asking? Let me urge you to send me your current answers to these questions and others I should have asked. Who else would be good to get involved in this conversation? With respect, Larry -- Lawrence Philbrook, Certified ToP Facilitator Director, Institute of Cultural Affairs Taiwan www.icatw.com Tel: 8862-2871-3150 Fax: 8862-2871-2870 Skype: icalarry

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Witness
by Lawrence Edward Philbrook 19 Jan '14

19 Jan '14

In about 10 days begins the year of the horse. For me it will be the beginning of my 60th year in the Chinese calendar, I am beginning my second cycle of the Chinese Calendar in January 2015 so I have a year to get ready. I joined the ICA/order first when I was 10 and again when I was 16. The three things that drew me to it the second time were: · Living a life of service to the world · Conscious intention to understand my self /others and to work toward living a life of self evolving discipline · Developing or finding and practicing methodologies, models, and tools that can used and shared to promote a more human existence in communities or organizations. I often check myself to see if I am maintaining service as a priority and have changed my path to feel more aligned. For many years I focused on the third, “developing and practicing methodologies”, with the second coming in only as insisted on by my colleagues. Twenty years ago, colleagues suggested I go to a Vippasana retreat in Igatpuri, Maharashtra, India – near our old project in Vaviharsh. This retreat was followed very quickly by my first experience with M. Scott Peck’s community building process which is a deeply reflective structure. I experienced a reconnection with spirit and a reconnection with my vocation. Everything changed, it was like putting back on my glasses after several years of working without them. I did not realize what I missed until I had it. What had been missing was my ability/willingness to reflect with others on my interior or spirit and that of the group. This has led me to twenty wonderful years working with colleagues at what I have considered a much more profound level striving in each encounter to hold the space for dialogue and deeper exploration based on the wisdom of each member (including listening to my own voice). In the past few years I have been working with several exciting communities exploring leadership development and organizational change: Appreciative Inquiry, Strength Based leadership, Theory U are examples, constantly striving to combine this with our work in participatory process, contradictional thinking and image change. I feel I'm on the edge of a breakthrough that won't quite come. This is a breakthrough to re-integrating individual reflective disciplines with community/organizational transformation while developing operational structures. I worked with Evelyn Philbrook, Dick and Gail West to develop a series of questions to ask people so they can contribute to our thinking of what is needed, here is our first draft: 1. Fast-changing world: Where do you experience the greatest need for transformation? 2. Already happened: What event/change has happened recently that you are pleased about? What are you most grateful for which has brought you to this point and which you see being called for in the future? 3. Leading the change: What new do you see is needed now in the arena of leadership – challenges and opportunities? 4. Inventing from the future: What do you sense is coming that demands change now? 5. World and your current organization: If you were all-powerful what are the first changes you would make? 6. Not yet recognized: What other question(s) should we be asking? Let me urge you to send me your current answers to these questions and others I should have asked. Who else would be good to get involved in this conversation? With respect, Larry Lawrence Philbrook, Certified ToP Facilitator CPF Director Institute of Cultural Affairs Taiwan www.icatw.com Tel:8862 2871 3150 Skype: icalarry

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Do you know when we did this?
by Marge Philbrook 17 Jan '14

17 Jan '14

I have found a set of 16 "rituals" each based on a quote like "I am seized by people's pain, and I am shocked by the way I can't stop caring" with no named author. The ritual starts Leader - community, etc. and then quotes an Ancient Declaration and a Contemporary Declaration, then The New Decision is a list of questions to be asked, and then the Leader closes with a one line and then there is a song quoted on the bottom of the page. I am thinking this must have been a prior's council or something. Were they usually 16 days? Anybody have any ideas?

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1/16/14, Spong: Part XI Matthew: Proof Texting the Birth Narratives
by Ellie Stock 16 Jan '14

16 Jan '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Part XI Matthew Proof Texting the Birth Narratives Matthew never allows us to forget that he is a learned scribe in charge of a synagogue made up of Jewish people who are the followers of Jesus. He is writing at a time in history when a battle is being waged for the soul of Judaism. The issues were clear in his mind. Will Judaism turn in his direction and incorporate Jesus into the ongoing Jewish story, just as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Amos had been incorporated in the past? Would Judaism be able to see and to admit what was so clear to Matthew, namely that Jesus fulfilled the prophets and met all of the concepts of messiah that had long intrigued the Jewish people? In the mind of Matthew the alternative to his proposal was to go in the direction represented by the Pharisees who, at that moment in Jewish history, were the dominant school of thought in Judaism. The primary emphasis of the Pharisees was first to recover the meaning and the power of the Torah by reinterpreting it in a more open direction, and then to install that newly cast Torah, as the central meaning of Judaism. The Pharisees were not eager, however, to incorporate Jesus into their future because he appeared to them to minimize the centrality of the Law. The tension between these two Jewish groups, the Pharisees on one hand and the followers of Jesus on the other, was palpable. One catches a glimpse of the depth of this mutual hostility when one reads what Matthew has to say about the Pharisees. These were the things operating in Matthew’s mind when he completed his story of Jesus’ birth prior to turning to his narrative of the adult Jesus. In this final column on Matthew’s birth narrative we look at what are the striking, recurring and dominant themes of what this author believes are the messianic claims for Jesus. Every episode in his groundbreaking birth narrative was written to demonstrate that Jesus’ entry into human history was both planned and executed “in accordance with the scriptures.” Today we conclude this first unit by looking at Matthew’s key argument, namely that the entire sacred history of the Jews pointed directly to the life of Jesus. Matthew was not a fundamentalist, but, he was both a convinced follower of Jesus and an avid student of the Jewish scriptures. In his gospel’s introductory narrative on Jesus’ birth he revealed how he was using these scriptures to document his thesis. By our standards of scholarship, the texts he employed do not come close to saying what he claimed that they said, but studies in first century Judaism help us to understand the mind of Matthew. So our task is to enter his mind and to embrace the way it operated. In the first section of the birth narrative Matthew chose a text from Isaiah (7:14) on which to build his story of the virgin birth. Next he used a text from Micah to assert a Bethlehem birth place for Jesus. Then he picked a text from Jeremiah to explain the murder of the boy babies of Bethlehem by King Herod. He followed this with a text he plucked from Hosea on which to hang his account of Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath. Finally, he quoted a text, the source of which we cannot locate in the Bible, through which to explain how it was that Jesus happened to have been raised in the Galilean town of Nazareth. None of these texts, we can safely assert, had been originally written to be prophesies anticipating the birth of the messiah. All of them were rather narratives through which Matthew tried to show that all of Jewish scripture ultimately found its fulfillment in Jesus. To treat any of those verses as if they had been written as predictions that Jesus had to fulfill is patently absurd. To stand where Matthew stood and to believe that all Jewish messianic hopes found their completion in Jesus required of him only a masterful and impressive ability to create a memorable story. To understand how he used scripture, one needs only to step away from our modern notions regarding fundamentalism by which the Jewish scriptures have been so deeply violated and read them from a very different perspective. In the words that have almost become a regular theme in this series we must proceed to free the Jewish scriptures from what I have called their “Gentile Captivity.” Let me try now to put these verses into the context of Matthew’s mind. First, we need to understand the historical context in which this gospel was composed. The Jewish nation was in dire distress. A war against the Romans had begun in Galilee by a group of Jews called “the Zealots” in the year 66 CE. This war, which had been encouraged by the Sadducees and the Temple authorities, ended in the tragedy of total defeat at a place called Masada in the year 73. In the middle of that war, namely in the year 70, Roman legions had conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, banished the Sadducees and the Temple priesthood and began a massive suppression of all things Jewish that would last well beyond the time that Matthew’s gospel was written. The Sadducees had been replaced by the Pharisees as the group that controlled the destiny of carrying Judaism into a Jewish future. Matthew countered their claim with the Jesus movement, which, he believed, was the only possibility of guaranteeing a Jewish future. Matthew’s vision was, however, of a far more universal religion than most Jews, and especially the Pharisees, could then imagine. To build his case, Matthew looked at the scriptures of his people in new ways. In Isaiah he found a scriptural justification to use for the supernatural birth, which he planned to describe. This birth was of God not of humanity, he argued. The Holy Spirit, not a human being, has fathered this child. This birth had nothing to do with biology. It was in his Jewish mind, the second great act of creation. In the book of Genesis the Holy Spirit had hovered over the original chaos in order to bring forth the gift of life in the first great act of creation. So now he quoted an Isaiah text that seems to him to make the claim that the Holy Spirit hovered over the womb of a virgin named Mary to bring about this new act of creation. It was in fact a huge literal stretch, but Matthew was willing to make that stretch, unaware perhaps that the word “virgin” never appeared in this Isaiah text in the Hebrew language in which this text was originally written. Another claim made by the Jews for their messiah was that he must be heir to the throne of David. Paul had first made this claim in his epistle to the Romans (1:1-4) written about the year 58, or 15-20 years before Matthew would incorporate that claim into his story by giving Jesus a Bethlehem birth place. Bethlehem was the city of David’s birth and for Jesus to be born there would solidify his messianic credentials. Micah, an 8th century BCE prophet, had written that the messiah must replicate David’s life. Being born in David’s city was just one part of that. In the power of Matthew’s writing style Jesus’ Bethlehem birth place became part of his story. In Matthew’s creation of Joseph, the author leaned on the Genesis narrative of the first Joseph in order to tell the story of his Joseph. Since Joseph the patriarch had saved the covenant people from death by taking them down to Egypt, so Matthew’s Joseph must also save the messiah from death by taking him down to Egypt. Then Matthew remembered that the messiah must also relive the history of the Jewish people whom God had long ago called out of Egypt. So without apology he quoted Hosea, who was talking about the Exodus, but Matthew applied it to Jesus as one more sign of messianic fulfillment: “Out of Egypt” God must call God’s “son.” Having borrowed his story from the Moses cycle in Exodus about the Pharaoh trying to destroy Moses, God’s promised deliverer, in his infancy, so Matthew now moved to replicate it in the life of Jesus. Reflecting the gift in Matthew’s quill, Herod became the new Pharaoh and sought to destroy God’s promised deliverer by killing all the boy babies in Bethlehem. The new Moses escaped, but the dastardly deed was done. Matthew then likened that experience to the destruction of the Jewish people at the hands of the Assyrians. The maternal ancestor of the Northern Kingdom was Rachel, the wife of Jacob and thus the mother of Joseph. So Matthew now quoted Jeremiah portraying Rachel as mourning for her children who “were not” for the Assyrian conquest had destroyed them. This then opened him to develop another messianic claim. Messiah must heal the historic Jewish division between the Joseph tribes of the North and the Judah tribe of the South. Only then would the tears of Rachel be washed away. Matthew did that by making Joseph the protector of the heir to Judah’s King David. Matthew then made another bold leap, but this time into messianic fantasy. He was aware that Jesus was a citizen of the town of Nazareth and thus a Galilean. In his development of the birth tradition he had maintained that Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child resided in a house in Bethlehem, about six miles from Jerusalem. To uphold his Nazareth and Galilean origins, he now sought a text to help him move Jesus from his place of birth in Bethlehem to Nazareth where Matthew understood that he had grown up. So he quoted an unknown prophet who said: “He (the messiah) will be called a Nazarene.” The only problem with this text was that no prophets that we know of ever said that. We are left to speculate. Did Matthew get it out of the Samson story where Samson was called a “Nazirite,” that is one who lived under vows not to drink wine or to cut one’s hair? That kind of Nazirite, however, had nothing to do with growing up in Nazareth. Or did Matthew find this crucial text in another quote from Isaiah that said: Out of the “root of Jesse,” the messiah will come. The Hebrew word for root is naser or nazir. We will never know. This text in Matthew’s birth narrative only reveals his eagerness to find in Jesus the fulfillment of all of the prophetic expectations. On that note, the first birth narrative of Jesus concludes and for the first time in Matthew’s gospel, the adult Jesus began to come into view. He is introduced by a figure we call John the Baptist. To his story we will turn when this series resumes. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Mark van der Laan, via the Internet, writes: Question: I stumbled upon your website via YouTube, where several of your lectures and interviews are shown. How I got there, who knows? let's call it providence. I'm part of the church alumni as you put it. But listening to your thoughts, I started to ask myself, if you take away the literal crucifixion, which I was taught as a little Catholic boy, and thereby take away what I always understood was the divinity of Christ, can you still say that Christianity is a religion or has it become a humanistic philosophy? Can it be both? Answer: Dear Mark, The last thing one wants to do or be able to do is to take away the crucifixion. That, it seems to me, is a well documented fact of history. What you might need to look at anew is how the crucifixion was interpreted and whether or not the details of that interpretation are literally true or a part of the developing mythology. The first narrative we have of the details of the crucifixion was not written until some 40-45 years after the event of the first Good Friday. That means that two generations passed before this story was written. In that first narrative (the gospel of Mark), the Hebrew Scriptures have already been wrapped liturgically around the memory of Jesus of Nazareth. The only words that Mark attributes to him on the cross are a direct quotation from Psalm 22:1. The story of the people taunting him is also lifted from Psalm 22: 7. The story of his garments being divided among his tormentors is in Psalm 22: 18. The thieves crucified on each side of him are designed to fulfill Isaiah 53: 12 where we are told he was “numbered with the transgressors.” The story of his burial by Joseph of Arimathea, a ruler of the Jews, is designed to give substance to the words - he was associated in death with a rich man, again from Isaiah 53: 9. We also need to remember that tins first account of the crucifixion was written in the Greek language that neither Jesus or any of his disciples spoke, so there is no way this could be a first hand, eyewitness account of what actually happened. The Christian affirmation that God was encountered in the person of Jesus, which is the substance of the claim of divinity, is not related to any one event in Jesus’ life, but to the whole Jesus experience. When I wrote my book Jesus for the Non-Religious, I spelled this out in detail. I suspect the story of the “divine” experienced in the “human” is far more profound than that which you learned, as you say, when you were “a little Catholic boy.” It is also far more profound than what I learned as “a little evangelical Protestant boy.” In my life of study, however, I have found no reason to deny the affirmation first spoken by Paul in the mid 50’s that “God was in Christ reconciling.” I hope you will continue to probe the interior meaning of the forms you learned as a child. The results may surprise you. My best, John Shelby Spong Announcements A Joyful Path, children's curriculum teaches interdependence, self awareness, respect for nature, forgiveness, prayer, and meditation. “The great need in the Christian church is for a Sunday school curriculum for children that does not equate faith with having a pre-modern mind. The Center for Progressive Christianity has produced just that. Teachers can now teach children in Sunday school without crossing their fingers. I endorse it wholeheartedly.” ~John Shelby Spong, Author, Jesus for the Non-Religious Click here for more information! Copyright © 2014 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402

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The Directory is Ready at last
by Jayandem2＠aol.com 11 Jan '14

11 Jan '14

Dear Friends and Colleagues: >From Mike Tippett: The 2014 Directory Of Those Who Care is now being printed. Copies for those who have already ordered a Directory will be mailed out by the end of next week. There is still time for you to order your copy! For those who aren’t familiar with The Directory, it is a listing of names, addresses, phones, emails and occupations of several hundred people who have been at one time or another associated with the I.C.A., or the Ecumenical Institute, or its programs and projects. It’s fun to see where everyone is living and what each is doing. (I’m in Florida and am semi-retired) The Directory 2014 If you would like a copy of your listing, either write or email me. I have a special email for The Directory: _MovementDir(a)aol.com_ (mailto:MovementDir@aol.com) If you would like a copy of The Directory, send in the form below. Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. ORDER FORM NAME: ______________________________ ADDRESS: ____________________________ CITY/STATE/POSTAL(ZIP) CODE: ____________________________ COUNTRY: ________________________ EMAIL: ______________________________ Make Checks out to and send orders to: (NOTE: New Address & Phone) Michael B. Tippett, 46 Meadow Circle – Ellenton, FL 34222 Phone: (941) 417-7120 Email: MovementDir(a)aol.com Please send me a copy of the directory: [ ] Booklet form [ ] CD Cost of the Directory is $20.00 for either the booklet form, or a CD. If you order two forms, it will cost $30.00. I enclose $___________ The CD will contain In Memoriam and Names and Addresses, etc, in Microsoft Word format.

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1/09/14, Spong: A Political Q and A
by Ellie Stock 09 Jan '14

09 Jan '14

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR A Political Q and A >From time to time I receive a letter which requires an answer that is too long for the question and answer format of this column, so I have to use it as the column itself. Such is the case this week, so I will interrupt my Matthew series for a week to respond to this question. JSS Gavin Young, from Las Vegas via the Internet, writes: I have said before in response to some of your columns and I will say it again, you need to stay out of politics and stick with theology. I can’t believe the misinformation about and defense and support for our current Celebrity-in-Chief, BHO (Barack Hussein Obama) aka Barry Soetoro. First of all, the President has NO AUTHORITY other than what he’s given himself to initiate a war. He/She MUST HAVE Congress’s approval. In what can only be described as a patronizing speech, BHO asserted FIRST OF ALL, that he has the right and authority to start a war or attack Syria WITHOUT Congress’s approval. He then went on to say that he would allow Congress its opinion as a gesture of “good will,” but again, he reiterated that the authority rests solely with him. Really? Witness the recent barricades around the people’s monuments in DC or the cancellation of the Army/Navy football game. BHO has no right to perpetrate such acts. Bishop Spong, please wake up and get real about this “President.” No presidency has been so shrouded in secrecy from its very beginning. BHO is very quickly becoming a dictator and history is repeating itself. What are you going to do when you wake up one morning and we’re under martial law and all your Constitutional rights have been stripped? When you’re no longer allowed to write your column or books because you’re a Christian? At last count, President Obama has committed at least 13 impeachable acts during his presidency yet no one stands up to him. When is a law not a law? When BHO says it is or it isn’t. I am frightened for our country, very frightened. Please get more information (i.e. the other side of the story) before making pronouncements in favor of BHO. Have you ever asked yourself why BHO’s aka, Barry Soetoro, is registered to vote at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? And what about the fact that his long form birth certificate is now well known to be a complete forgery? And as far as trying to curtail our debt, well the facts speak for themselves. When the national debt reaches $20 trillion, our economy will implode within a few hours. May God forbid that ever happens. The USA is already #16 in best countries to live in. What’s up with that? And what caused it? I love you dearly, Bishop, and am a HUGE fan of yours (please come to Las Vegas), but you really need to become as well informed about politics as you are about theology and biblical interpretation. Dear Gavin, I really love it when I get a letter like yours, filled as it is with prejudice, veiled racism and profound ignorance and you want me to stay out of politics and stick with theology? Then in an act of rare hubris you not only accuse me of “misinformation,” but you then proceed to illustrate your charge with the most egregious expression of right wing extremism I have read in a long time! So let me respond to your tirade with as much rationality as I can muster. Do you want me to stay out of politics so that your feelings about politics will not be challenged? What is your understanding of being a Christian? Have you ever read the Bible? When Jesus sums up the Law, the Torah, he does so by exhorting us to love God and to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke has Jesus define our neighbor as a Samaritan, the object of the deepest Jewish prejudice in that era. So, how do I love my neighbor? It seems to me that one does that by opposing all the things that dehumanize a fellow human being. What does that mean politically? It means one works against slavery, against segregation and against any other form of social prejudice. It means one works for equal pay for women. One works to see that women have equal access to higher education, equal opportunity in every area of society from religion to the military, to equal opportunity in business success. It means that one opposes everything that holds up the glass ceiling on women’s aspirations and to be either the President of the United States or the Pope. It means that one builds a basic dignity into the social fabric of this nation which mandates that a safety net will always be present in our national life beyond which no one is allowed to fall. It means that one works for an equitable tax policy that will not allow the wealthy so many loopholes, which only they can exploit, so that they wind up paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than do their secretaries or maintenance personnel. It means that one works to remove discriminatory laws against gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people. It means that one seeks to provide adequate health care for all citizens whether they can afford it or not. It means that one does not allow workers to be exploited or to work in unsafe conditions. It means that society adopts a minimum wage high enough to allow one who works full time to be able to live on his/her pay. It means that one does not allow an economic system to develop that grinds away until 90% of the wealth of this nation is in the hands of one percent of the population. Those are the ways we follow the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves! This kind of society does not just happen it is created by the decision-making bodies elected to govern the corporate society. That is what the political process is. Do you really think that because one has a religious perspective one should be disqualified to speak out on political decision making? Can worship be separated from justice and still have any integrity? Your hostility toward the president of the United States, a man elected handily in 2008 and re-elected by a margin of more that 5,000,000 votes on 2012, would be laughable if it were not so distorted! “Our Celebrity-in-Chief?” You sound jealous! Your use of BHO (Barack Hussein Obama)) and Barry Soetoro” as names for the president reveals your pettiness. Your suggestion that he has no authority to initiate a war is out of touch with the facts of history. Presidents, as commander in chief, have always had the right and the duty to respond with force when the nation’s people or our vital interests have been attacked. In 1950 President Truman responded to an attack by the forces of North Korea on our ally South Korea, with whom we had a mutual defense treaty. People called it not a war, but “a police action,” but it cost this nation 50,000 members of the armed forces and caused us to commit a huge army in the field, first commanded by Douglas MacArthur, later by Matthew Ridgeway and during that “police action” this nation carried out a full scale invasion by sea at Inchon. The Korean War did not begin with a declaration of war by Congress, but with the decision of the President. Yes, under the Constitution, only the Congress can declare war, but the Commander-in-Chief has to respond to an attack when it occurs. Waiting until the legislative body can act is not always possible. This president, whom you disparage so crudely, has stopped a war in Iraq, he is winding down a war in Afghanistan and he was able by using the threat of war to get Syria to dismantle and to destroy its arsenal of chemical weapons without a war. Your lack of knowledge about the history of this nation is substantial. Ignorance is not a sin, but it does disqualify you from being taken seriously by me or anyone else. Your rhetoric reaches levels of mental disorientation when you talk about Mr. Obama becoming a dictator, by suggesting that he is guilty of 13 impeachable acts, by suggesting that his administration has been shrouded in secrecy and by talking about one’s constitutional rights being stripped away. Your rhetoric sounds like the paranoid elements of the NRA that seem to think that a required background check before one can purchase a gun is tantamount to stripping us of our constitutional rights. Every single one of the world’s great democracies except the United States requires a background check for gun ownership. The universal result of that requirement is not the loss of a constitutional right, but the significant lowering of the murder rate in those nations. For you to claim that the birth certificate of this president is “well known to be a complete forgery” is to reveal that you no longer live in a world of rationality. You tell me that I am not qualified to speak on non-theological issues. I do not know the basis upon which you make that statement, but let me do something that I seldom do in order to call your thinking into question. Let me share with you my credentials that qualify me to participate publicly in the political debate in our nation. I have engaged in a life long study of both history and politics. I have written a weekly column for 14 years that seeks to explore and to illumine every area of human life. As a national columnist I have been credentialed to be part of the press corps attending the national political nominating conventions on two occasions. I have interviewed major political figures. I have been interviewed by Bill O’Reilly, William F. Buckley, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Charles Gibson, Kathleen Sullivan, Peter Jennings, Bill Maher and many others. I have read biographies of every president of the United States. I have traveled to most of the nations of the world. I hold seven honorary doctorates from major universities in America. I was elected to be the Quatercentenary scholar at Emmanuel College of Cambridge University in England in 1991 and chosen to be the William Belden Noble Lecturer at Harvard University in 2000. My portrait was commissioned to be painted and to hang in the “Hall of Honor” at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapel at Morehead College in Atlanta for my contributions to civil and human rights. I believe I have earned the right to be part of my nation’s political debate. You certainly have the right to disagree with me on any issue, but I have serious questions about whether you have earned the right to stand in judgment on me. I’m glad you are “a huge fan.” I hope some of my values might rub off. John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Mary Emeny from Amarillo, Texas, writes: Question: I have always had trouble saying the Nicene Creed. It sticks in my throat. I know several others who have the same experience with it. When you were in Amarillo in June, you gave an explanation of it and how you relate to it. I believe others might find it helpful so would you mind repeating it? Answer: Dear Mary, I find it difficult to recall what I said back in June. I only know I enjoyed our time in Amarillo enormously. My thanks to all of you for that time. It was very special. Your question, however, comes up often. I think it is because people think of the creeds as statements of belief required of a Christian. The creeds are certainly used that way in many Christian churches. Is that, however, a proper way to view them? I do not think so. A look at history will help to put the creeds into perspective. St. Paul did not know anything about creeds. He responded in I Corinthians 15 to questions about the Christian faith by saying, “I have delivered to you as of first importance what I have received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephus, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. “Last of all,” Paul concludes, “he appeared to me.” This recitation of the major events in the Christ story looks to me like the beginning of a creed. Having said that, however, a look at early church history reveals that no one related to these Pauline words as the beginning of doctrine or dogma. Indeed, much of it is open to a wide variety of interpretations. The idea that Jesus “died for my sins,” for example, has come to be read as a statement of substitutionary atonement, which is nonsense, both historically and psychologically. The phrase “to die for our sins” arises out of the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur, which is something vastly different from the idea that God punished Jesus for our sins instead of punishing you and me. To hold to that concept would give us a rather monstrous, child-abusing God that I for one would not care to worship. In the “Parable of the Judgment,” found in Matthew 25, the only criteria for entering the Kingdom of Heaven did not involve believing any creedal statement, but rather the ability to see the “Holy” in the faces of those viewed as the least of humanity, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the imprisoned and the sick. The Nicene Creed, which is the one to which most people are referring when they talk about creeds, is a fourth century document hammered out in great conflict at a council meeting of the leaders of Christianity in 325 CE. Because the intellectual life of the fourth century Mediterranean world was dominated by the Greek language and culture, this creed reflects the dualistic thinking of Ancient Greece, contrasting the supernatural with the natural, the divine with the human and the body with the soul. Most dualistic thinking has been abandoned by the intellectual world of the 21st century. Yet those creeds live on and, if literalized, bend 21st century minds into fourth century pretzels! They were never meant to be strait jackets into which our minds had to be contained or girdles into which our flabby faith had to be forced. I see this creed primarily as a love song that our fourth century ancestors wrote to sing to their understanding of God. I have no problem in joining in the singing of this ancient love song, but it would not occur to me that saying these words in worship somehow committed me to a literalized belief system, based on a 4th century view of reality. All creeds are human attempts to capture in human words the experience of the divine. The words we use to describe the divine will differ in every generation. There is no such thing as an unchanging universal language. No one can be bound by the words of a generation that no longer exists and that includes the words of our creeds. God is a living experience and talking about that experience will take different forms in every generation. None of those forms will ever be ultimate nor will any of them ever capture truth for all time. Words like infallible and inerrant have no place in the Christian vocabulary. I hope this helps. John Shelby Spong Announcements Read our collection of reader submitted Evolving Faith Statements and New Creeds: http://progressivechristianity.org/evolving-statements-of-faith/ Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402

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Saipan Tribune Friday from Jaime
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 09 Jan '14

09 Jan '14

The sun in your eye A visiting professor at Shenyang Aerospace University fromShandong province asked me to consider tutoring advanced engineering studentsin talking about solar energy in English. Being a strong proponent of alternative energy and power to fossil fuel,I said "Yes!" Oil fields off China Sea's continental shelf are privilege terrainof foreign oil companies who used to only play a minimal fee. In some recent arrangement, 45 percent of anexploration is owned by a transnational corporation, the other 45 percent belongsto a Chinese company like PetroChina listed in the Stock Exchange, and theremaining 10 percent owned by a government body. Our doggedly hopeful card sees the drilling of oil to eventuallytaper down to non-reliance as China fends off opportunism and intrusion on itssovereignty over the China Seas, while it pursues hydro, wind, solar, natural gas,biofuel, and nuclear alternatives to fossil fuel. Let us be clear about the issues ofsovereignty in the China Seas; it is all about access to oil, even as we watchthe same issue disintegrate South Sudan, and roil the normally passive folks ofMyanmar. We saw mini-hydro in the Zichuan's autonomous Zang country,and the practice is encouraging. Small-scalehydro, like those in Japan, can handle requirements of southwest China. Meanwhile, Nanjing's haze looks like Sherlock Holmes'London, not of inland fog but of mei-fired(coal) smog. The obvious task of developingalternative energy is most urgent in China. I live in Shenyang that straddles the low end of the Manchurian plain, atrough between two mountain ranges, which keeps the smog perpetually inbetween, so I am resigned to a respiratory ailment as I stay here longer. Late November this year in Qingdao, a Sinopec oil refinery pipelineexploded on what is blamed as human error, i.e., poor planning of pipe laying inan urban area, lackluster maintenance procedure, and susceptibility to dangerthrough the city sewage system. When aleak was discovered, the area was not immediately sealed and evacuated; theensuing explosion cost 55 lives and many injuries. Ironically, this was almost a replay of asimilar incident in 1988. In 2011, ConocoPhillips oil platforms had three leaks thatpolluted waters six times the size of Singapore on Bohai Bay north of Shandong(kept from news for a month until it slipped out in a blog). The third leak coincidentally occurred on thesame day as a refinery at the Daya Bay Economic and Technical Development zonein Guangdong exploded. The alarm was notonly on the flammable material in the refinery but also of its proximity to theNuclear plant situated close to the urban center of Hong Kong. We now know that 40 hours of solar energy reaching the earthis enough to power the whole planet's current annual requirement. The energy is free and the hustles on photovoltaiccatchments are now easily a walk in the park, or, a drive through in unpopulatedwide-open spaces like the grassland, or, on the sides and tops of citybuildings. The technology is available at cost par to coal, gas, and oil firedpower generation. So, why are we not doing it? Like any addiction, dependence on oil is like alcohol fume to the intoxicated. It is not easy to curtail. Production structures around the world thatharness fossil fuel, and the financial instruments that sustain them, hold legislativepower protecting turf as they guide global economic growth. Popular wisdom is still wary on why we would want a rapidchange. We are still on denial on theextent of human participation in climate change presently experienced aroundthe planet, no small thanks to oil money for distorting the science that feeds illusions. Wekeep to the comfort of the familiar. "Those who walk in darkness have seen a greatlight," is a metaphor from the Prophet Isaiah used during the Yuletide season. The light source Ra (sun) ruled in Egypt forcenturies, and a mythical journey of a nightly trip into Nile's nether lands toemerge again in the light of dawn, influenced the theme of exodus in the Torahand the resurrected image of the Christian faith. The experience of clear blue sea in the Aegeanwhere depth is seen from great distance above adds to the European philosophicalmetaphors of lucidity, enlightenment, and liberation. The big lie is the inevitability of polluting earth'satmosphere; we would rather trigger Armageddon over oilfields to ensurecorporate bottom lines than move away with determination from an addiction. But individuals can raise cane to demand thatcommunal resource be used to avert a natural catastrophe already at ourdoorsteps. Or, more quietly, like mybrother's house in Oahu's Ewa Beach, and of my classmate in Oakland, CA, gophotovoltaic! Self-interest can beenlightened. The arenga pinnata, atropical sugar palm tree that grows in Saipan and the rest of Micronesia also trapssunshine that converts into biofuel. Theresource is there. We only need to decide. Let's go solar. May your darkness see the light of day!

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Note from Rose Anne and Blase
by Lynda Cock 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

Rose Anne has asked that I post this note to the list serves: Blase and I want to thank all of you who sent cards, email messages or Facebook messages - and those of you who sent love and care silently - we felt it all. It's still very hard but the initial shock of Aaron's death has lessened a little and we are feeling more light in our lives - even though this will take time to heal and will be with us always. He was special. At his service - his high school friends spoke about him - one boy told us all - through his tears - that he had always been different and didn't have many friends but Aaron saw through all that and befriended him. One young women said Aaron taught her to see life with a new perspective - to see the beauty in everything. Blase and I feel that we were greatly blessed to have him as our grandson for 19 years. He was a very sincere and spiritual person. We miss his physical presence profoundly. Although we have to bear our grief alone, I think the love from friends does help. We appreciate your kindness and care. Rose Anne and Blase Sands We continue to hold this family in our care, Lynda

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ST Thursday from Jaime
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 06 Jan '14

06 Jan '14

A shopping mall There's the Mall ofAmerica (currently in the Polar Vortex) in Minneapolis, and the Mall of Asia bythe Bay in Manila, but Hong Kong is one big tropical mall of a city that enticeseveryone to open their wallets. The city24/7 lives to make and access the social and physical value represented by theHong Kong dollar. Put simply, the coolieand the nanny, the neck-tied banker and the harried taxi driver, the numerous salesgirlsand the proud street sweepers, and all others within the urban triangle at themouth of the Pearl River, from Xianggang (HK) to the outskirts of Guangzhou (Canton)to Aomen (Macau), get going in the 24-hour cycle of a Metropolis that does notever sleep, hustle in earnest in search of the currencies issued by the HongKong-Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), the Bank of China, and the StandardCharter Bank. Our latest visit toHong Kong a week ago showed a terrain more bustling than it was in the 70s whenwe frequented a tenement home on Kowloon's Ship Kip Mei and a Hakka village in the New Territories'Sai Kung. I was in the staffof NT's Nam Wai all-community approach Human Development Project. A resort developer came calling and the smartvillagers sold their real estate for a hefty price. The grateful community presented a Rolex watch toone of our resident volunteers; a daughter let me steer her Dad's Mercedes whenI visited them in the SF Bay Area where they migrated. A Canadian colleagueand I this past week took a commercial half-day tour of former familiar placesin Victoria Island. Aberdeen with its famedfloating restaurants was our first stop. I visited Aberdeenin the 70s. It only had a one-street promenadethat had a few tall buildings, one owned by a family who manufactured some ofHallmark's votive candles. When I visitedthe factory, I expected no more than 10 workers in a storefront meltingparaffin wax to a mold. The business wasin fact a multi-faceted concern that occupied the multi-story building, even providingmunitions' material for Vietnam. The owner'sfamily name is Lam, residents of exclusive Pok Fu Lam Rd, our clue then that the business was more than just a dismissibleone-line entry on a bank ledger. Aberdeen was a floatingfishing village populated by Tanka boatpeople who cleaned the daily catch in the channel. Now, the ladies steer their sampans fortourists (at extra cost from basic tour fee) while navigating their boatsaround sleek yachts of the rich and the infamous. The fishing had since moved elsewhere. A jewelry shop inthe Aberdeen industrial zone was next stop. No doubt the gold and jade, pearl and silvernecklaces and pendants engaged skilled workers and were guaranteed quality butthe operation was marketed hard to captive audiences and was personnel heavy, addingcost to what was already too rich for my pocketbook. Chinese tourists, consumers of things glitzy,were loose with their credit cards. Deep Water andRepulse Bays were next sights but the tour did not make a stop since the drawcard of the area was gawking at expensive dwellings and drooling over Ferraris. A tall condo built between the shore and asteep hill has an architectural gap reportedly big enough for a helicopter tofly through in films. But it is theastronomic cost per sq. m. that made us recall how the whole of NYC's Manhattan,and the golden mile off Chicago's lake front, are now only affordable to theU.S. one percent! Residents include manyex-pats on company paid dwellings. Stanley Market, aday market, was next stop. I zipped myback pocket tight to keep my wallet in place. The shops did not differ from all the tourist traps I've been through,colorful and aerosol fresh so I window-shopped, letting all the cute andaffordable t-shirts to remain hanging, the knick-knacks and trinketsresplendent on display, but left the limited HK$ secured. The apex of the tourwas Victoria Peak, long the end destination of the HK tram if one came directlyfrom HK's Central District. The view of thecity's skyline is still fantastic, as it was more than a decade ago when welast viewed the sight, but they had added more buildings since, and for HK$40more, one offers a roundabout view in one place. I walked round the old public vantage points. Tsim Sha Tsui'swaterfront back in Kowloon, our tour's pick-up and drop-off point, offered aview of the legal fireworks set to go up an hour before and after New Year's midnight. Not unlike taking a photo near Bruce Lee'sstatue in front of a clear photo billboard of Victoria's skyline to avoid the realbut hazy one, a lot of Hong Kong was costly artifice, a really spruced-up Mall. The crowd that watchedNew Year's fireworks poured out of public transport, gathering as early as 6 p.m.since many thoroughfares closed early. The MRT ran till 3 a.m. for the revelers. I stayed in Tai KokTsui in West Kowloon's Mong Kok area where the low-income folks came out to eatand shop before midnight, occasionally lighting up banned firecracker in alleys,but are foundational to fanciful and fashionable Hong Kong. I felt at home with my hoi polloi; kept company with them into 2014! Jaime Vergara pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Looking for Jean Taylor
by Ann Avery 05 Jan '14

05 Jan '14

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Jean? Watching the fireworks and the London skyline on television for a few minutes, I was struck by the sense of hope that gets abroad as the new year dawns. In spite of everything. Ann Avery The Garth, Hall Street Wellingore, Lincolnshire LN50HU United Kingdom

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