Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2016 http://colleagueslist.blogspot.ca/

Thursday 24 November 2016

Colleagues List II, November 27th, 2016 

Vol. XII. No. 12 

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GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address:
waholst@telus.net

 
Colleagues List Web Site:

http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com
 

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Dear Colleagues;

This is first full blog letter since the crash of
my computer and other related vicissitudes 
at the middle of October. 

At least I am back to creating Colleagues List
as I want it to be!

Except, of course for some technical glitches
that take time to work out - like links that are
too small, etc. please bear with me as I learn
a new program thanks to my teaching associate
Jock McTavish.

To begin, I want to acknowledge the passing
of Dr. Mathew Zachariah, professor emeritus
in the Faculty of Education, U. of Calgary. He
died on October 25th, and he will be missed.
My thoughts and prayers are extended to
his wife Saro and their children.  

The big news items since mid-October clustered
around the US election and the 500th anniversary
of the Reformation - as far as I am concerned!
So quite a number of items, below, are related to
these stories.

First, however, is my book notice for University
of Calgary colleague and friend, Clara Joseph.
We have known each other for at least 20 years.
 
I hope you like what she publishes as a poet
in  “The Face of the Other. 

Thanks to those who have written to comment
on my return to weekly blogging, and about
the new format I am trying to master.

Wayne   

****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice:

THE FACE OF THE OTHER
by Clara Joseph,
Interactive Press,
Carindale, Queensland, Australia 
2016. 70 pages.  $11.50 CAD
ISBN #978-1-925-23135-9

Publishers Promo:

An evocative and thought-provoking collection 
of poetry that reveals more to the reader with 
each reread. Clara Joseph covers a wide range of 
themes and ideas whilst tying them all together 
under the repeating image of the face, seen from 
many different angles and in different guises.  

The author seamlessly transitions between personal 
poems of change, transition, or personal philosophizing, 
to more public issues of justice and injustice, violation 
and destruction, all the while returning – unblinking – 
to the perception of the other within the world.  

Ultimately, this book is about what it means to meet 
the other person. 

--

Intelligent, thoughtful, and provocative, this sensual 
work ranges from the sacred to the profane in language 
that mixes the philosophical and the vernacular. With 
The Face of the Other, the well published Clara Joseph 
makes a stunning debut as a poet.

– Ken McGoogan, author of Lady Franklin's Revenge


--

Authors Bio:

Clara A. B. Joseph was born in Kerala State, India
and she earned a PhD. in English from York University,
Toronto, ON. She is an associate professor of English
and an adjunct associate professor of Religious Studies 
at the University of Calgary.

--    

My Thoughts:

I attended the launch for this book in Calgary some
weeks ago at the author's invitation. The experience 
was both enticing and troubling for me.

Clara Joseph has been a friend for twenty years and
I thought I knew her quite well. But the poems in 
this attractive book of 70 pages brought to my 
attention another side of her. The lines reveal
things about Clara I had not appreciated previously.

Reading her poetry is like attending a gallery of
impressionist paintings. Only in this case, the
imagery is verbal.

The settings for these reflections cover a range of
territory in her mind and through her pen, even as
the events that prompted them come from many
places.

I was particularly attracted to those settings I 
suspect were from her native India. Even though
Clara is quite thoroughly Canadian, she has not
lost appealing characteristics of her native 
formation.

She writes of her perception of the other within 
the world. In the end her book is about what it 
means to meet that person. Sometimes, that
discovery is attractive, and sometime scary.
Much depends on that is going on in one's own
mind at the time, it seems.

Enjoy an untitled example: 

The air is eager though all too wet
when stubborn fig trees spread their skirts
this side of the highway wall. I watch in awe

yet cannot speak to you who own this wonderland.
The wind is scolding when all was still
until some pleats are pushed off this side of
the highway wall; the trains that warmed

those trims now pass us both; they pass us by.
The silence has spread, the pines have pierced
the contours of our mutual fear, have turned
to dust for wind and air both sides of the highway wall,
I lick my lips with your fame. Do you know

                                                      my name ?   
--

I found that what was happening to Clara drew
me into the ambiguities of my own mind and heart
when encountering other people - some of whom
I am drawn to; and others who repulsed me.

Here are poems you will return to, and each time
you will experience something new and different.

Thanks for this gift, Clara.

--  

On a somewhat similar theme, but differently focused,
I recall a prose book by another colleague,  written 
five years ago:     

The Other Face of God, by Mary Jo Leddy 
http://tinyurl.com/zluv4q5

---

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:
http://tinyurl.com/hzt6noz

*****   

COLLEAGUE COMMUNICATIONS 

John Everard Griffith,  
Calgary, AB. 

October 15th, 2016 

Hi Wayne, this is the first I have heard of 
this initiative to discover what characterizes 
a flourishing church in Canada.

Instead of copying the article I thought
it would be easier to sent it to you. It is 
the short article entitled:

Flourishing Amongst Decline

John

 http://tinyurl.com/zhtyzwk

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Philip Jenkins,
University Park PA, and Waco TX

White Christian Apocalypse?

The American Conservative
November 17th, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/zeyoytg

For background to this article see:

The Last Hurrah of White Christian America
 
Religion News Service,
November 14th, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/jn67448

--

Martin Marty, 
Chicago, IL 

Sightings,
October 31st, 2016

Reformation Jostlings 

http://tinyurl.com/zbo9abk

--

Thomas Ryan,
Boston, MA

Koinonia,
October 31st, 2016

Looking Beyond 2017: 
  A New Catholic View of Luther  

http://tinyurl.com/jfxhrn2

--

John Stackhouse Jr.
Moncton, NB

Personal Blog
November 2nd, 2016

American Evangelicals and the US Election 

http://tinyurl.com/zhmb3t3

*****

NET NOTES

TRUMP AND THE TRANSFORMATION
OF WHITE AMERICAN EVANGELICALS
Their Support for Him Demonstrates
a Significant Shift in Their Moral Values

Ideas - Politics
November 19th, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/jk49gs7 

 --

ANGLICAN-UNITED CHURCH DIALOGUE
Seeking Greater Collaboration in Mission 

Anglican Journal
November 23rd, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/j6xvk8j

--

PAPAL  VISIT TO SWEDEN SHOWS
FRANCIS AS ECUMENICAL TRAILBLAZER
He is Willing to Go Over to the Other Side

The Tablet, UK
November 3rd, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/jqfcucl   

--

DOES PROTESTANTISM STILL MATTER?
After 500 Years Does It Serve a Purpose?

Religion News Service
October 30th, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/j8pjjve

--
 
CATHOLIC WOMEN SEEMINGLY POWERLESS
Recent Statement by Francis Distresses Many

UCA News
November 2nd, 2016 

http://tinyurl.com/j23undy

-- 

CANADIAN STUDY FINDS THAT
CONSERVATIVE CHURCHES STILL GROWING
Literal Approach More Popular as Biblical Stance

Religion News Service
November 21st, 2016 

http://tinyurl.com/zyqmhvk

--
 
WHAT OBAMA GOT RIGHT
Assessing His Stewardship

The Atlantic Online
December, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/gqjx8v3

--

HOW LEONARD COHEN 
TAUGHT JUDAISM TO THE WORLD
Canadian Singer-Songwriter, Also Religious

Religion News Service
November 11th, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/gvdy7t6

--

CRYPT BELIEVED TO BE JESUS TOMB OPENED
Special Search for the First Time in Centuries

New York Times
November 3rd, 2016 

http://tinyurl.com/hspbxbv


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

- Adrienne Rich

--

They say every bigot was once a child without prejudice.

- Elliott Ashby

--

You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions
will remain. We are creatures of consequence.

- Zadie Smith

--

To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live
in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

- Nelson Mandela

--

One of the things Jesus did was to step aside from the
organized religion of his time because it had become
more corrupt and bogged down with rules.

Rules became more important than feeding the hungry.

- Corita Kent

--

If you are reading this ... you have some kind of privilege.
It may be hard to hear that, I know, but if you cannot recognize
your privilege, you have a lot of work to do; get started.

- Roxane Gay

--

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a
big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can
make which, over time, add up to big differences that
we often cannot foresee.

- Marian Wright Edelman

--

Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth,
and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.

- John Stott

--

I think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the
church looking for God, and what we give them is religion.

- Bishop Gene Robinson

--

Maybe some – or maybe many of you – think that you
don’t have any religion or faith. The truth is, we are and
we will be with Christ even though we don’t know it, and
even though we seem not to want it. For he will be with
us, to the degree that our hunger and thirst for justice,
truth, and love is honest.

- Dom Helder Camara

--

Try walking around with a child who’s going, “Wow, wow!
Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house!
Look at that red sky!” And the child points and you look,
and you see, and you start going, “Wow! Look at that huge
crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary
dark cloud!”

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world –
present and in awe.”

- Anne Lamott

***


ON THIS DAY

From the archives of the New York Times

Indira Gandhi Assassinated
http://tinyurl.com/c82lhwh

Thomas Edison Invents Workable Electric Light
http://tinyurl.com/mxn27c2 

***

CLOSING THOUGHT - Henri J. M. Nouwen

Gratitude is not a simple emotion or an obvious attitude.
It is a difficult discipline to constantly reclaim my whole
past as the concrete way in which God has led me to
this moment and is sending me into the future. It is hard
precisely because it challenges me to face the painful
moments – experiences of rejection and abandonment,
feelings of loss and failure – and gradually to discover
in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for
deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith.

(end) 


For Those Interested
  
ST.DAVID'S SPIRITUAL TRAVEL PROJECT, 2017

We have selected South Africa as our location!

We plan a nineteen-day trip that combines a
focus on faith, culture, and nature, and it will
happen the month of October 2017.


A beautiful brochure with trip cost, itinerary, and
many helpful travel hints will be published soon. 
Follow these notices for weekly updates.

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