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Thanksgiving Reflection
by Rod Rippel 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Someone posted the Mayflower Compact with the comments by Thomas Berry a while back. I remember it and added a few reflections. Rod Rippel THANKSGIVING REFLECTION Most of our holidays in the US come to us as imports from The Old World, being taken from the Christian liturgical calendar. The Church, in turn, took them from older Pagan cultures and transformed them into Holy Days celebrated throughout Christendom. Of our own holidays, only two are uniquely American, those being Independence Day and Thanksgiving. A feast seems entirely appropriate for a celebration of giving thanks. The traditional servings at Thanksgiving include foods which are originally from America, not found in the Old world. These include corn, potatoes and, of course, turkey (a bird once nominated to be our National Symbol by Benjamin Franklin). Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863, when, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise…to God.” Lincoln designated Thursday, November 26, to be celebrated as a national holiday. In the mythology of the country, Thanksgiving is often connected to the feast celebrated by the Pilgrims and Indians in the Plymouth colony in 1621. That feast lasted for three days and was attended by approximately 50 Pilgrims and 90 indigenous Americans. I imagine the Native Americans supplied the corn (and perhaps the turkeys) while the Colonists saw to it that there was plenty of beer (an Old World beverage) to last the three days. Even then, excess was a mark of thanksgiving feasts; a tradition we continue to observe. I’m intrigued by the various connections between the Old World and the New when it comes to our Thanksgiving Holiday celebration. How would such a tenuous connection be symbolized meaningfully in our current feasting? And what of the contributions of the Indigenous Americans to our current practice of Thanksgiving? What are they and how would we symbolize those connections today? Of course we are highly conscious of the Colonists’ contributions for which we give thanks, their Faith and civic traditions, their social customs, history and learning. But what vestiges, if any, of the cultures and learning’s of Native Peoples of America have survived or retained in our current holiday? Not much. When I was a member of the Order:Ecumenical in the late 60’s we would symbolize the roots of Thanksgiving in particular and US civic development in general by having someone read out loud The Mayflower Compact at our Thanksgiving meal. This would be followed by a corporate conversation led by one member on the blessings (and failings) of the ‘civil body politic’ since those earlier times. These were always meaningful and sobering conversations. Here’s the Compact: IN THE name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the 11 of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domine 1620. (A Side Note: The Pilgrims, having spent some time in liberal Holland, before going to Great Britain, do not appear to be too enamored of the Trinity!) (2nd Side Note: Such a reading at the Thanksgiving Table shifts the meaning of Thanksgiving itself away from simply being a meal with Thanks, but towards the corporate blessings bestowed by our ‘civil body politic,’ and introduces the possible notes of repentance and forgiveness). SOMETHING TO ‘CHEW ON’ WHEN WE CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING Thomas Berry in his book, The Great Work, juxtaposes the culture of the American Indians and that of the Europeans settlers. The arrival of the Europeans in North America, he says, “could be considered as one of the more fateful moments in history, not only of this continent but of the entire planet…. Every living being on this continent might have shuddered with foreboding when that first tiny sail appeared over the Atlantic horizon.” The aboriginal peoples of North America and the European settlers held two sharply contending views of nature. “To indigenous people…the natural world was the manifestation of a numinous presence that gave meaning to all existence…. As seen by the Europeans the continent was here to serve human purposes though trade and commerce, as well as through the more immediate personal and household needs of the colonists. They had nothing spiritual to learn from this continent. Their attitude toward the land as primarily for use was the critical issue” Culturally derived beliefs about the role of humans in the world caused insuperable difficulty for the Europeans in establishing any intimate rapport with the North American continent or its people. According to Thomas, “Such orientation of Western consciousness had its fourfold origin in the Greek [humanistic] cultural tradition, the biblical-Christian religious tradition, the English political-legal tradition, and the economic tradition associated with the new vigor of the merchant class.” To the Europeans “Their human-spiritual formation was complete before they came. They came, [they thought,] with the finest religion of the world, the highest intellectual, aesthetic, and moral development, the finest jurisprudence. They needed this continent simply as a political refuge and as a region to be exploited.” They were committed to a “divinely commissioned task of commercially exploiting this continent [and] could even experience a high spiritual exaltation in what [they] were doing.” Only now, after 3000 years of hearing the Judeo Christian imperative of “Be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion over all its creatures” are we turning our ears to the suffering of nature and our planet. We see how lonely it will be without our fellow-creatures who are being lost as a result of our selfishness. How our action and exploitation is spoiling the only nest we have. How our stewardship has proven short-sighted. Perhaps Thanksgiving can be transformed into a true ecological holiday celebration; one that includes our responsibility not only for ‘the civil body politic’ but for all life on the planet.

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Re: [Oe List ...] Dorothy Day and Joe Mathews on the Same Track
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Thank you, Randy. Great minds, indeed. Jann In a message dated 11/28/2012 10:43:57 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rcwmbw(a)yahoo.com writes: Friends and Colleagues, One of Joe's quotes, I think from the RS-1 Church Lecture, which many of you may have used from time to time, as I have, to express your frustration with the church, was "The church is a whore but she's my mother." Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, would have been 115 years old this month. The Catholic Church is currently in the process of canonizing her. Today I ran across an article which she wrote and published in The Catholic Worker in January of 1967 entitled "In Peace Is My Bitterness Most Bitter." In this article she is chastising some of those in the church who, among other things, had called for a "total" U.S. victory in the Viet Nam War. In that article I discovered this quote from Dorothy Day. "As to the Church... Though she is a harlot at times, she is our Mother." (Joe may well have placed the comma after the word "harlot.") Having imagined all these years that this was one of the more brazen statements Joe Mathews ever uttered, I was amazed to run across the same statement, from about that same time, from a Catholic nun. I'm not sure why this struck me as such an interesting discovery. Perhaps it is that, as I continue in the midst of my life-long love/hate relationship with institutional Christianity, I found new justification that it is a struggle worth having. Whether Joe got the quote from Dorothy Day or vice versa, or whether it was a case of two great minds using the same analogy, I thought it worth sharing with you. If anyone knows more about the history of this statement, I would interested to hear. Be well, Randy "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] Thanksgiving musing
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 27 Nov '12

27 Nov '12

Jaime, As usual, I enjoyed your article, but hardly think the wild turkey is endangered. I could be wrong, but they are quite numerous in coast range hills of California. Blessings, Jann McGuire In a message dated 11/20/2012 4:51:35 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, svesjaime(a)aol.com writes: The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com> To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera(a)saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago(a)saipantribune.com>; editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Tue, Nov 20, 2012 8:48 pm Subject: For Thursday T-Day Three perspectives underlie the structure of Christian thought in the last two millennia. The most familiar one is transcendence where paradise in the metaphor of heaven is located elsewhere than where we currently are. Then there is earthly immanence, the transformation that occurs when one unconditionally embraces the fullness of life in the here-and-now. The third is the spirit of freedom, transparent exercise of responsibility in the realm of finite historical choices. In ritual, these perspectives were intoned in the medieval formula of naming realities, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" In current parlance, that would be rehearsing the role of the Terminator, the Transformer, and the Turkey! Human civilization ritualize certain events like the culmination of a harvest, the completion of a monumental task, or just the satisfaction over the passing of a crisis. Gratitude is a garden variety of human virtue. It joins other modes of affirmed consciousness in the practices of personal confession, societal petition, and relational intercession, long observed in prayerful communities. We tarry along the religious path of this national holiday because most Americans gather around family tables this day in the mythology of the first perspective. In such spirit began the annual celebration after Abraham Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in Heaven". Brownscombe 1914 painting of Plymouth settlers feasting with natives has become a familiar visual to accounts. Historians tell of 53 Plymouth settlers and 90 Indians holding a three-day feast after the settlers survived their first year of harsh winter. (Revisionists point out that narratives, at least, need to acknowledge how the native residents were later turned into targets on T-day's turkey shoots!) FDR nailed the date down to the fourth Thursday of November, to settle the uncertainty of day on those years when there are five Thursdays in November. Not all States complied. It became a joke that when there were five Thursday, observance on the fourth made it Democratic while on the fifth, Republican. The celebration has commercially evolved into a season of shopping, marked by Macy's Parade, merrily rolls down the store aisles until way past New Year, with the apex reached with Santa's gifts under the Tannenbaum bought and wrapped before Christmas eve. The intrusion of the dollar into the equation watered down the religious emphasis specifically made Christian in the presidential proclamations of Presbyterian pastor's son Grover Cleveland and staunch Methodist William McKinley. Gerald Ford made the day totally secular skewing previous references to providence in his proclamation. The media was not pleased. Ford lost the next election. Ronald Reagan chuckled the "pardoning" of the proffered turkey, and George H. W. Bush made the practice a permanent fixture in the annual presidential ritual. Bill Clinton emphasized gratitude to those who serve to promote the American vision and implement its mission. George W. Bush took the task of international peace into the war room on terror after 9/11. Obama was criticized for not thanking "God" in his proclamation of 2011. American sentiment shifted. Obama got reelected. Along with many College and Professional Sports' events, Holiday movies get a Thanksgiving premiere to test their weight in the box office. The pumpkin pie remains a dinner staple but the contest is in the field on the biggest and heaviest variety raised. Meanwhile, the wild turkey joins the list of the endangered specie. The t-bird that graces holiday tables lost its thunder and smell, coming from coops where they are fattened for weight. The meat hardly emits the familiar fragrant fowl flavor and aroma characteristic of the wild bird in the prairies now relegated to the trademark of a Bourbon. Thanksgiving Day in China has all the trappings of western commercial symbols devoid of historical moorings. In Saipan, we render obeisance to providential divinity in the cosmic realm. It is a matter of course but irrelevant. In my campus building, gratitude is echoed by the Anshallah of Muslims from Africa, the Middle East, South-Southeast Asia who share my building's morning elevator ride with their gracious salutations of Salaam Malaikom! Grace drapes the diversity. Save for a lone Protestant evangelical, we do not see much of the transformative messianic impulse, amazingly gracious, or otherwise. The once 'puritanical' CPC battles corruption within its ranks, with President Hu Jintao declaring at the recent Party Congress that if the practice is not curtailed, it will be the death knell of the Party and the government in the next decade. The hyperbole on service reminiscent of Mao's vaunted service is met by a skeptical smirk. The current gap of income distribution is deep and wide. That's all that seem to matter in a newly affluent and resurgent China. The Terminator remained with Ahnold in California. The Transformer is still a toy but got animated in the fight between the autobots and the decepticons. As for my gobble gobble, I will stick with the turkey! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Colleen Birch Smith
by Clare Whitney 26 Nov '12

26 Nov '12

Colleen Birth Smith left this life Thanksgiving afternoon in Moab Utah where she had lived for several years near her son and his family. She and her husband, Victor, came to the community from Salt Lake City where they were in the religious house. They went to Cusak, WA when the project began there and she worked as a Vista volunteer. Victor died in 1980. In 1982 she took assignment to Samoa and then to Tonga, returning in 1985 and living in Denver. She moved to Moab several years ago to be near family. She has been sick for some time and while there is sorrow on our part that she has left us, we also rejoice that her earthly pain is over. She leaves two sons and a daughter and many colleagues who remember her keen understanding and her passion for justice wherever she was. Grace and Peace, Clare Whitney, Denver

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Harry Wainwright
by Lynda Cock 25 Nov '12

25 Nov '12

In conversation with Mary Ann this evening, I learned that Harry has stablized greatly and is looking forward to a pacemaker surgery tomorrow. He's been on quite a journey the last week and seems to be doing so much better. They have high praise for the cardiac unit at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. Continue to hold them in your care, Lynda Cock

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Harry Wainwright
by Lynda Cock 23 Nov '12

23 Nov '12

According to the message from Marianna Bailey, Harry appears to be stable following a heart attack on Nov. 20, when he was placed in critical care. He is in Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. We add this name to those we hold in our care. Lynda Cock _____ From: Marianna Bailey [mailto:wmbailey@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:23 PM To: Lynda Cock Subject: Re: prayer chain, now I Haven't heard from Mary Ann today so I assume Harry is the same. The message has not gone out to OE. I did call Rob and Chris Work. Please do forward to OE. We are getting settled into our new apartment and like the Deerfield community very much.. Lynn lives in Asheville and Tom is now living in New Jersey (not near the coast!) Nan lives in the New York area but visits often. Please do come by to see us when you travel this way. Thanks to you and John for the daily blog. I always look forward to the picture and the quote. With Love, Marianna On Nov 22, 2012, at 4:17 PM, Lynda Cock wrote: I am so pleased to learn Harry is stable. Did this message also go out to the OE list? to the Stovers? If not, may I forward it? Or will you put it on? I know folks will want to be supportive of Harry and Mary Ann. Thank you for letting us know. I'll write Mary Ann. Hope you both are doing well. Are you enjoying your new living space? I hope to make a TN trip this spring and would love to stop by to visit with you. We also invite you to stop by if you are coming this way to visit Tom. Is he still in Tarborro? I think I recall that Lynn moved to Asheville. Is that correct? We are so grateful for this connection with colleagues with whom we have shared this incredible journey. Lynda and John _____ From: Marianna Bailey [mailto:wmbailey@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 11:54 AM To: Lynda Cock Subject: Fwd: prayer chain, now The last I heard he is stable. Begin forwarded message: From: Aliyah Schick <aliyahschick(a)bellsouth.net> Date: November 20, 2012 11:22:03 PM EST To: Aliyah Schick <aliyahschick(a)bellsouth.net> Subject: prayer chain, now Dear friends, >From Marianna Bailey at 7:30 this evening, Harry Wainwright is in critical condition at Mission Hospital due to a heart attack. Please pray for Harry and for Mary Ann, both long time members of Jubilee and of this prayer chain. Love, Aliyah Jubilee! Prayer Chain

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hAPPY THANKSGIVING!
by Ellie Stock 22 Nov '12

22 Nov '12

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL ~ VERY GRATEFUL FOR ALL OF YOU AND FOR OUR NETWORKING, WORK, AND COLLEGIALITY OVER THE YEARS ~ PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE! GRACE AND PEACE ~ CARLETON AND ELLIE

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11/22/12, Spong: The Boil Has Been Lanced. A New Consciousness Has Arrived
by Ellie Stock 22 Nov '12

22 Nov '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Boil Has Been Lanced. A New Consciousness Has Arrived The votes have been cast, counted and the results have been made known. Radio and television stations are no longer relentlessly broadcasting anti-Obama and anti-Romney ads. The emotions of both victory and defeat have been experienced and expressed. The “blame game” is well underway. The 2012 election is over. President Obama has four more years in the White House. The Senate has a larger Democratic majority. The House of Representatives has a smaller Republican majority. Beyond these measurable results, however, another reality needs to be embraced. A new consciousness has emerged in this nation’s life and with it different and clear definitions of race, women, homosexuals and tribal thinking have entered the body politic. The birth pangs of this new consciousness are being felt in both the exhilaration of the victors and in the anger and despair of the losers. Racism has been a powerful, unspoken reality in every aspect of American life from the moment of this nation’s birth, contradicting everything we said we believed as a nation. When our Declaration of Independence was written it stated that each “man” was endowed by his creator with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Yet, its author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slave holder and, indeed, the father of a number of children by a slave woman, Sally Hemings, none of whom would be counted as his heirs. When the Constitution of the United States was written, it counted each slave as 3/5 of a human being for the purposes of determining the size of congressional districts. In those documents marking this nation’s birth, women were completely disenfranchised and would not be given the vote until a constitutional amendment conveyed that right in 1920. Obviously, no woman could hold elective office, since women were excluded from institutions of higher learning that might have equipped them for careers outside the domestic sphere. At the beginning of our nation’s history, homosexuality was viewed as an abnormality, which brought great shame on the parents. The liberal understanding of homosexuality was that it was a mental sickness that the victim could not help, which should elicit at least a sense of pity. The conservative understanding was, that it was an act of moral depravity that evil people chose freely and thus it should be opposed and or repressed like all other unacceptable kinds of behavior. Ethnic or tribal feelings also ran deeply in that era. The white American majority identified themselves primarily with their European tribal roots, which included among others, the Angles, the Saxons, the Welsh, the Scots, the Franks and the Prussians. Historically, these tribes roamed across Europe’s unstable and ever-shifting map, seeking to lay claim to space to call a homeland. Germany, under Prussian pressure, did not become a nation state until the 19th century and Italy had to fight the Pope, Pius IX, to form a unified country, also in the 19th century. All of these attitudes were based on the operating definitions of that day and were in turn undergirded by the cultural forms of religion, which were assumed to be authenticated by scriptural quotations from the Bible, called the “word of God.” One by one the definitions behind each of these attitudes was challenged and the previously established values began to change, as a new consciousness based on new definitions was evolving. At first this new consciousness was only the voice of an agitated and alienated minority that was viewed in establishment circles as a threat to both law and order and needed to be destroyed or suppressed. As this new consciousness grew, however, the majority point of view began to feel power slipping away and this fear expressed itself in rising decibels of anger that frequently turned violent and even resulted in random acts of murder. The issue of race has dominated this country from its founding in 1776 to the civil war that brought an end to slavery by 1865. In 1876, in a political compromise that awarded the electoral votes of four disputed Southern States, including Florida, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president. The compromise called for the removal of Northern troops of occupation from the South and the quid pro quo was a willingness to allow slavery to be replaced by segregation as the law of the land. This new law allowed the total disenfranchisement of black citizens and its implementation was enforced by intimidation, lynching and the activities of the KKK. Segregation held sway from 1876 to the birth of the civil rights movement after World War II, which finally resulted in the 1954 Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision desegregating schools. In 1964 and in 1965, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, was also appointed by Lyndon Johnson in 1967, creating the idea of a “black seat” on the court that Republican President George H.W. Bush honored in 1991. As segregation receded, however, police dogs, fire hoses and church bombings were used to prop up the dying power of the old order. No new consciousness is born without rampant anger from those being displaced. In 2004, I attended, as a member of the press, the Democratic National Convention, in Boston, which nominated John Kerry to be President of the United States. I listened to the keynote address given by a sitting Illinois State Senator and the Democratic nominee in Illinois for the United States Senate in the coming elections. His name was Barack Obama. I filed a story from that convention stating that I believed I had finally seen a black politician, who could be elected President of the United States. Just 4 years later that indeed happened. A new racial attitude was clearly breaking through. Changes in the roles of women and gay people were happening simultaneously. The first successful women politicians tended to be wives of successful male politicians. One thinks of Lurleen Wallace in Alabama, for example. Women had not been allowed to receive university educations in America until the early years of the 20th century and the state universities and private colleges were not open to them until well after World War II. Since then their rise in power and influence has been rapid. Today in some states both senate seats are held by women. Women first appeared on a major party’s national ticket in 1984. When Franklin Roosevelt appointed the first woman to his cabinet in 1932 it was a radical and hugely controversial step. Today it is a universal expectation. When Ronald Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, to the Supreme Court, he established the principle that there is a “woman’s seat” on that court. That idea that there must be “one woman justice” soon departed and today there are three female sitting justices. Quite typically, the churches of this land have been very late in adjusting to female equality and some have not done so yet. Beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969, the gay population entered in a major way the struggle for recognition and a new definition. In time Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts, entered the ranks of national leaders as chairman of the House Banking Committee and gave his name to the Dodd-Frank Bill designed to curb the speculative practices of banks. Once again religious institutions were the most dismissive of these trends and many religious bodies split as some in their ranks could not adjust to new realities. While all of these things were happening on the level of what had once been the plight of those we called minorities, the economy of the world began to draw nations beyond their tribal identities into an economic interdependency never before imagined. The European Common Market withered the independence of Europe’s nation states. The same economic trends are happening in North and South American and in Southeast Asia, although they are not yet as far advanced as in Europe. National sovereignty is giving way to larger economic entities. So the fact is that this change in consciousness, which began as a crawl, is now galloping in all directions and as the world changes the fear of those whose power is declining is increasing. In the American primaries of 2008 a host of candidates, who would never have been considered for the presidency earlier, were serious contenders. There was a viable Hispanic candidate in Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico; a viable female candidate in Senator Hillary Clinton of New York; a viable Mormon candidate in Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts; a viable twice divorced and three times married candidate in Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City, and a viable African-American candidate in Barack Obama. When Barack Obama was elected it was a major breakthrough in consciousness, but the loss of both power and influence of the defeated ones found expression in thinly veiled racist language: “He is not one of us.” “He is illegitimate because his birth certificate was forged.” “He is a Muslim.” “We must take back America.” “He was really born in Kenya.” “He channels his Kenyan father’s anti-colonial mentality and hatred of white people.” These opposing voices vowed to limit him to being “a one-term president.” All of that lay behind the election of 2012. The rise in consciousness, however, has proved not to be a temporary phenomenon. President Obama, despite a weak economy, high unemployment, his public support for same sex marriage and the visceral anger of his opponents, was reelected. A post-election analysis revealed that his winning coalition was made up of women, minority and young voters. The world has changed. This nation has changed. An African-American is president for four more years. The number of women in the Senate has doubled. Two new members of the House of Representatives are under 32 years of age and more black citizens have entered the political process and occupy seats of power. Three states voted their approval of gay marriage and a lesbian was elected to the Senate from Wisconsin. The power of white males, supported by the overwhelmingly male religious institutions, that have controlled this nation’s political and religious life for so long is in obvious decline. The idea that a white, male establishment can direct women on issues of abortion and contraception has been broken. By 2016, the candidacies of women, Hispanics, African-Americans and openly gay people will be normal. Both parties will seek their votes. Republicans are already looking at their rising Hispanic stars, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, for the presidency. The Democrats yearn even now to anoint Hillary Clinton to be their new standard bearer. The grid-lock between the old establishment and the new consciousness that held the government hostage for the past two years will be broken and will no longer be tolerated by the people. The election of 2012 reveals that the United States is in a new place. The anger exposed in such movements as the Tea Party will now dissipate. This was anger’s last stand. The citizens of this nation will adjust to this new reality. That is what always happens. Perhaps the feeling is not universal today, but in another generation this nation will be very proud of what we did in the presidential election of 2012. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Bryan Turk from Arlington, Texas, writes: Question: First off, I want to thank you. I have read The Sins of Scripture and Jesus for the Non-Religious and truly enjoyed both works. Your progressive view of God and theology has certainly been inspiring to me. I admire your strength of character and integrity for standing at odds with your religious upbringing. You are a hero of sorts to me and I can't thank you enough. I know all too well what it is like to grow up and currently live in the buckle of the Bible belt. While my sociological and political views today are much more progressive, I grew up in Louisiana in a fundamentalist Bible church. My father was on the board of elders. After several years of doubting what he believed and following his divorce from my mom, he embraced atheism. For years I struggled with his conversion and felt so lost in my own spirituality. The old worn-out tenets of Deep South Christianity gnawed away at me. I felt like I would lose him to eternal hell. After a few years, my own search for what I believe led me to viewing YouTube clips of you and subsequently some of your books and essays. At this point in my life, I’m still charting my course on my view of a God and things of spiritual nature. I lean towards atheism, but could be considered agnostic or deist or even pantheist at best. I really don’t know how to characterize what school of thought I espouse. However, theism for me is dead or rather non-existent. It still feels really great to know that I don’t have to believe the Bible in a strict, literal sense anymore. I still struggle with guilt from time to time. Especially the fear of death at times because of my apostasy. I would like clarification of the gospel writers. I know that Mark was the first gospel written around 70-72 CE shortly after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans. I recently had a fundamentalist Christian tell me that her reason for believing the literal account of the life of Jesus was because the gospel writers were “disciples” of Jesus. It would seem to me that obviously these were not first hand accounts of Jesus because the first gospel was written some 40 years after his death. And Paul gives us sparse details on the actual life of Jesus. Paul would seem to be a better fit for someone that actually “saw” Jesus. Do you believe that any of the gospel writers walked or talked with Jesus? Through reading Jesus for the Non-Religious, I realize that Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark and so on. Much of what was written in the gospels were filtered through the lens of Jewish heritage and the Old Testament. I just want to increase my consciousness on these points so that I can discuss cogently and truthfully with people I come across who are fundamentalist Christians. Answer: Dear Bryan, First, thank you for your generous comments. Second, thanks for sharing with me some elements of your own faith struggle. It is not easy sometimes to move beyond yesterday’s certainties even when you have been disillusioned by them. My advice is simply to engage those feelings and not to be afraid to talk about them. For many people their religion is part of their security system and they hide within its defensive walls from any study or threat. When those walls don’t hold, that person feels exposed, let down and angry. It is not surprising that you now wish to hurl the whole system overboard. Christianity is, I believe, far more than what you have experienced. Another path for you might be to decide to study Christianity, including the Bible, more deeply than you ever have done before. To do this, however, you must be part of a church that welcomes such a dialogue. I hope you can find that. To answer your specific questions, your fundamentalist friend is simply wrong. It is clear that none of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about in their gospels. First, the gospels were written between 40 and 70 years after the crucifixion. That same time frame embraces between two and three generations. If the disciples were Jesus’ contemporaries, they would have been when the gospels were written between 70-100 years old, far beyond the normal life expectancy in the first century. Second, the gospels were written in Greek, a language that none of the disciples or indeed not even Jesus himself appears to have either spoken or written. Third, the gospels reflect the background of the liturgical year of the synagogue. Prior to their having been written, the memory of Jesus had already been incorporated into the worship life of the synagogue and interpreted through the Hebrew Scriptures that were present in those synagogues. Paul does not seem to have ever interacted with the Jesus of history. He does claim to have “seen the Lord,” but that is apparently a reference to the conversion vision. I wish you well in your conversations with your fundamentalist friends. I have never found that to be a productive avenue to pursue because religious discussions are not really about religion. They are about people’s personal security and anything that confirms their security becomes what they believe. People move out of fundamentalism when they are ready to move, not when someone like you tries to push them. This was at least my experience when I was a fundamentalist. Most of the things I talk about in Jesus for the Non-Religious have been available in the world of biblical scholarship for almost 200 years. Fundamentalists have simply ignored these discoveries and insights if they could and they have denied them if they could not ignore them. I suggest that you simply love your fundamentalist friends, but don’t try to argue with them. Live well! ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2012 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
by Ellie Stock 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Hi folks-- Below is a link to a new PBS documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream. First is an article. If you go to the bottom, there is a link to HULU where you can watch the whole documentary. It is about 1hr 10min., plus a few commercials but well worth the time to see it and begin to understand the relationship between big corporate money, the US political system, the environment, and poverty. A continued call for us to work on creating more resilient, self-reliant, sustainable re-localized communities and bio-regions. Ellie Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, PBS, check ... www.patheos.com/blogs/sisterrosemovies/2012/11/park-avenue-money-power-and-... Nov 12, 2012 ... The notice announcing Academy Award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's new documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American ... Hi folks-- Below is a link to a new PBS documentary: Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream. First is an article. If you go to the bottom, there is a link to HULU where you can watch the whole documentary. It is about 1hr 10min., plus a few commercials but well worth the time to see it and begin to understand the relationship between big corporate money, the US political system, the environment, and poverty. A continued call for us to work on creating more resilient, self-reliant, sustainable re-localized communities and bio-regions. Ellie Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, PBS, check ... www.patheos.com/blogs/sisterrosemovies/2012/11/park-avenue-money-power-and-... Nov 12, 2012 ... The notice announcing Academy Award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's new documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American ...

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Hmm, wonder if this happened in WWII?
by James Wiegel 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH: A Brief Overview What is posttraumatic growth? It is positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event. Although we coined the term posttraumatic growth, the idea that human beings can be changed by their encounters with life challenges, sometimes in radically positive ways, is not new. The theme is present in ancient spiritual and religious traditions, literature, and philosophy. What is reasonably new is the systematic study of this phenomenon by psychologists, social workers, counselors, and scholars in other traditions of clinical practice and scientific investigation. What forms does posttraumatic growth take? Posttraumatic growth tends to occur in five general areas. Sometimes people who must face major life crises develop a sense that new opportunities have emerged from the struggle, opening up possibilities that were not present before. A second area is a change in relationships with others. Some people experience closer relationships with some specific people, and they can also experience an increased sense of connection to others who suffer. A third area of possible change is an increased sense of one’s own strength – “if I lived through that, I can face anything”. A fourth aspect of posttraumatic growth experienced by some people is a greater appreciation for life in general. The fifth area involves the spiritual or religious domain. Some individuals experience a deepening of their spiritual lives, however, this deepening can also involve a significant change in one’s belief system. Some Clarifications Most of us, when we face very difficult losses or great suffering, will have a variety of highly distressing psychological reactions. Just because individuals experience growth does not mean that they will not suffer. Distress is typical when we face traumatic events. We most definitely are not implying that traumatic events are good – they are not. But for many of us, life crises are inevitable and we are not given the choice between suffering and growth on the one hand, and no suffering and no change, on the other. Posttraumatic growth is not universal. It is not uncommon, but neither does everybody who faces a traumatic event experience growth. Our hope is that you never face a major loss or crisis, but most of us eventually do, and perhaps you may also experience an encounter with posttraumatic growth. Jim Wiegel "Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.. You got to change with it." Woody Guthrie 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods Coming in February. Ask about an inhouse course ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday of every month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.

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