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

Tuesday 22 May 2018

Collegues List, May 27th, 2018 - Addendum

Vol. XIII No. 47 (addendum)

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

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

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

*****

Dear Friends:

The column I had planned to include in Colleagues List for
May 27th did not appear until now, so here it is:

SPECIAL ITEM

My May column for the Anglican Journal -

"Gandhi - Man of the sacred and secular,

  East and West"

https://tinyurl.com/y7sndpt6 

Wayne

PS Thanks to the people at the Anglican Journal, Toronto.


Colleagues List, May 27th, 2018

Vol. XIII No. 47

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

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

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

*****

Dear Friends:

I planned to use my May column about Gandhi
for this week's Special Item on Colleagues List,
but it is not yet available. I hope to share it here
when my next CL issue appears on June 10th.

Here are a number of items I hope you will find
interesting, and I look forward to including you
in my readership two plus weeks from now.

Wayne

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log,
May 20th, 2018

"US Embassy Move Misreads the Bible"
  https://tinyurl.com/ybknnnjc


--

Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL

"Too Many Liberals in the Liberal Arts"
  https://tinyurl.com/y9a2nrtv


--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
May 21st, 2018

"On Friendship"
  https://tinyurl.com/ycgftfvd


*****

NET NOTES

A SERMON THAT SPOKE TO THE WORLD
Good News Proclaimed at Royal Marriage

Religion News Service (article and video)
May 22nd, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yavcq2g2


--

Globe and Mail,
May 21st, 2018

RECAPPING THE ROYAL WEDDING

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wed at St. George’s Chapel
in Windsor Castle on Saturday, but it was an American bishop
who managed to steal much of the spotlight. The Most Rev.
Michael Curry, the head of the Episcopal Church in the United
States, used his sermon to make note of the power of love “in
any form or experience of it” – an apparent critique of the Church of England'sbban on gay marriage. That was just one part of the ceremony bvthat broke with tradition:

Markle was the first royal bride to walk partway down the aisle
on her own; she also didn’t vow to “obey” her husband in the
vows. The couple put off their honeymoon for now, and will
make their first public appearance as the Duke and Duchess
of Sussex tomorrow.

--

JIMMY CARTER AT LIBERTY
Surprising and Hopeful Speaker

Christianity Today,
May 18th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybwhettv


--

SENIOR CATHOLIC CONVICTED
Aussie Prelate was Highest Ranking

BBC News,
May 22nd, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybvgnjxv


--

LGBT COMMUNITY CHEERS FRANCIS' REMARK
"God Made You Like This" - Pope Said

America Magazine,
May 21st, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybzcmzms


--

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION THE NEW NORMAL IN INDIA
Democracy of Gandhi No Longer a Model for the World

La Croix International
May 21st, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y925rf72


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

- Jane Addams

--

We have to cross the infinite thickness of time and space –
and God has to do it first, because he comes to us first.

Of the links between God and man, love is the greatest.
It is as great as the distance to be crossed. So that the
love may be as great as possible, the distance is as great
as possible. That is why evil can extend to the extreme
limit beyond which the very possibility of good disappears.

is permitted to touch this limit. It sometimes seems as
though it overpassed it.

- Simone Weil

--

There is often more wisdom to be found at the edges
of life than in its middle. Life-threatening illness may
shuffle our values like a deck of cards. Sometimes a
card that has been on the bottom of the deck for most
of our lives turns out to be the top card, the thing that
really matters. Having watched people sort their cards
and play their hands in the presence of death for many
years, I would say that rarely is the top card perfection,
or possessions, or even pride. Most often the top card
is love.

- Rachel Naomi Remen

--

This age needs to become more realistic. It needs to listen
again to the words of Jesus, who said, “I thirst.” He who is
the Son of Man, the Son of God, is our example. He is the
great pioneer in every realm of life. Surely if he thirsted, how
much more do we? Humanity needs to get away from the
world of  “things as they are” into the world of “things as they
ought to be.” This means that men and women must learn
to live for others. It is only when we can live a life of self-
forgetfulness that we get our truest joy out of life

- Alexander Stuart Baillie

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Harvey Milk

Hope will never be silent.

(end)

*****

Friday 18 May 2018

Colleagues List, May 20th, 2018

Vol. XIII No. 46

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

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

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

*****

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the latest edition of Colleagues List. This week I feature the latest book by Jimmy Carter - entitled Faith. Immediately following the Special Item, Martin Marty provides a Colleague Contribution on "Jimmy Carter (and hope) in the news" - and I think they fit together nicely. There is also a Net Notes piece from the Christian Century on "Why Jimmy Carter is Hopeful" - so there is a lot by and about Jimmy in this issue. He speaks calmly but substantively to our conflicted times.

I continue to be interested in what is happening - religion-wise - in the USA right now (perhaps more so than usual) and my Net Notes reflect this.

Thanks for following these mailings and for your support in other ways.

Wayne

*****


SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

FAITH
A Journey for All,
by Jimmy Carter

Simon and Schuster, Toronto
April, 2018. Hardcover. 180 pages.
$30.65 CAD. Kindle $13.50 CAD
ISBN #978-1-5011-8441-3

Publisher's Promo:

In this powerful reflection, President Jimmy Carter contemplates how faith has sustained him in happiness and disappointment. He considers how we may find it in our own lives.

All his life, President Jimmy Carter has been a courageous exemplar of faith. Now he shares the lessons he learned. He writes, “The issue of faith arises in almost every area of human existence, so it is important to understand its multiple meanings. In this book, my primary goal is to explore the broader meaning of faith, its far-reaching effect on our lives, and its relationship to past, present, and future events in America and around the world. The religious aspects of faith are also covered, since this is how the word is most often used, and I have included a description of the ways my faith has guided and sustained me, as well as how it has challenged and driven me to seek a closer and better relationship with people and with God.”

As President Carter examines faith’s many meanings, he describes how to accept it, live it, how to doubt and find faith again. A serious and moving reflection from one of America’s most admired and respected citizens.


--

Author's Words: 

Faith, in both its religious and broader dimensions, influences our individual and communal lives, our lives in religion, and our lives in government and in secular affairs... 
I believe (now more than ever) that Christians are called to plunge into the life of the world, and to inject the moral and ethical values of our faith into the  process of governing... (Later in my life) I have tended to move away from politics and toward religion, but the two are still related.

(Carter writes extensively about how his faith was formed, from his earliest years. He recounts times - such as when he lost the election as president for a second term - how he relied on his faith and his marriage to Rosalynn to carry him through. He did, however decide early to risk and not try to play it safe so far as his next steps. He also describes his early experiences with deep-seated racial prejudice in his local community and throughout the American South. Another concern of his from early years was the equality of women and men. On a number of occasions he has stood against his own Baptist tradition when he saw racism and misogyny at work)...

(A basic principle of his life has been) "We must welcome changing times, but cling to principles that never change" ... We must accommodate life's challenges, some welcome and others quite painful, but we don't want the verities of our lives to change..."

I would like to say as an American,  who has been president that the cherished values of our country are constant, but they are not... despite the confusion and controversy in secular affairs and among religious organizations, the basic principles (I speak of in this book) have never changed. These are the foundation of our faith...

The human challenge now is to survive by having sustained faith in each other and in the highest common moral principles... through mutual understanding and peaceful cooperation in addressing our discerned challenges to our common existence...

It is urgent that humans take a new look at the rapidly growing need for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Ten Commandments, the Koran, or the teachings of Jesus Christ and to see if these visions of improved human interrelationships might be used to meet the challenges of the present moment and evolve a peaceful coexistence, based on faith in each other.

- from the Introduction

--

Author's Bio:

Jimmy Carter was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981. In 1982, he and his wife founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people around the world. Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He is the author of thirty books, including A Full Life: Reflections at NinetyA Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power; An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood; and Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis.

Longer Wikipedia Bio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter 

--

My Thoughts:

I have been reading Jimmy Carter's books for more than 30 years. The first one I remember was - Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (1987). It was co-authored with Rosalynn Carter. In that book the authors wrote of the disillusionment they faced after losing the presidential election for a second term and when they returned to their near-bankrupt peanut farm near Plains, Georgia.

At that time, I was going through my own period of disillusionment about my family, my career and my faith. I was 44 at the time, and Jimmy was 62. Even though he was further along life's road than I, it was clear he was not giving up, and that inspired me.

The Carters wrote of three life principles which they followed to help them move forward:

      Good Health, Fulfilling Oneself, and Helping Others.

I took those same goals seriously and look back (and also ahead) with much satisfaction. I would say that the Carters have accomplished a good deal more with those goals since their White House years than up to and during them. Indeed, they were able to build on their experience and employed key "transferable skills" to their new lives. I think I can say I did the same. As with the Carters, we don't do these things by ourselves, or only with the help of our nearest and dearest.

What is important, I believe, is my attitude and a willingness to grow and change. These lessons were not easily learned by Carter or me.

Now, at age 93, Jimmy Carter completes a book entitled simply Faith and, as he writes in his Introduction (above), he follows a path quite similar but more evolved than he was when I first read him.

I discover from some backstory digging that Carter is cutting back on his weekly Sunday School teaching at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. But, interestingly, he is giving a commencement address at Liberty University in Virginia this month.

His teaching decision was made to give others in his church a chance to teach, resulting in a reduction of visitors to his little church (which has a membership of 30. Normally crowds averaging about 350 come to hear him).

Teaching the Bible stimulates his mind. He continues doing such things. That he would give an address at Liberty University (a flagship school of fundamentalist Christianity in America) demonstrates his continuing openness to dialogue with those who differ from him.

Carter believes that religion has a place in politics, largely because it offers a moral/ethical standard that politics needs. Of course, he realizes that can be abused, and religious people can be misled. But his career has been an evolving example of trying to maintain a creative balance between the secular and the sacred.

I continue to be impressed with the biblical-centre of Carter's faith. This is one of the great values of his Baptist heritage. But he is steadfast in his critique of a Southern Baptist fundamentalism that remains racist and sexist. Some years ago he made a break with the Southern Baptist Convention for just those reasons.

Carter is the kind of Baptist I admire and, in many ways, would seek to emulate!

While reading much of this book (as I have 8-10 other Carter books over the years) I sensed myself in that Georgia church, listening to him teach. It is a blessing to be able to do that - because this book may well be his last.

Carter is still "working on his health" as a cancer-survivor; on "fulfilling himself through work" like jaunts with Habitat for Humanity;  and on "helping others" through his continuing service at the Carter Center in Atlanta.
____

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:
https://tinyurl.com/ybbfy7tp
 
*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL

Sightings,
May 14th, 2018

"Jimmy Carter (and hope) in the news"
  https://tinyurl.com/ydfpsn3o


--

John G. Stackhouse Jr.
Moncton,  NB.

Personal Blog
May 16th, 2018
 
The Willow Creek Story:

"Does Your Board Know It's Business?"
  
https://tinyurl.com/y9afdzke

--

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
May 16th, 2018

"Geese - An Unintentional Parable"
  https://tinyurl.com/y6wkb8tp


--

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON

Sermons and Blog
May 11th, 2018
 
 
"The Pursuit of Happiness"

--
 
James M. Wall,
Chicago, IL

Wallwritings,
May 17th, 2018

"A Child Dies in the Killing Fields of Gaza"
  
https://tinyurl.com/ycwozu87
 
--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
May 14th, 2018

"Suicide and Despair"
  
https://tinyurl.com/yax8h85j

*****

NET NOTES

WHAT ABOUT JESUS?
Jim Wallis on the Current
State of American Politics

Watch the Exceptional Video
Contained in the Wallis Article

Sojourners,
May 15th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yafcmfcd

--

WHY JIMMY CARTER IS HOPEFUL
An Interview on His Latest Book - "Faith"

The Christian Century,
May 7th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y8n4wfhw

--

HATE CRIMES SPIKE AFTER TRUMP TWEETS
His Anti-Muslim Tirades Have an Effect

The Daily Beast,
May 15th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y8l4dsqv

--

LIVING IN GAZA MEANS LIVING WITHOUT HOPE
Palestinians Mark Seventy Years Since Displacement

La Croix International
May 16th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ybsm5dkx

La Croix International,
May 17th, 2018

"Judaism and the Challenges of Zionism"
   https://tinyurl.com/yaellxej

--

BANGLADESHI JOURNALISTS
LIVING IN CONSTANT FEAR
Scores Killed in the Past 25 Years

UCA News,
May 14th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y74cnovu

--

TO MY FELLOW EVANGELICALS, WHAT YOU
ARE CHEERING IN ISRAEL IS SHAMEFUL

Concerns of a Leading American Evangelical
By Richard Mouw

Religion News Service,
May 16th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/ycu4m9wm

--

WOMAN NAMED ARCHBISHOP IN CANADIAN
ANGLICAN CHURCH FOR THE FIRST TIME
Melissa Skelton Not First in the Communion However

Anglican Journal,
May 14th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yb7by8vu

--

SEX ABUSE IN HUMANITARIAN GROUPS AND,
CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES - WHO IS LEFT TO TRUST?

The Christian Post,
May 15th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y9esm77c

--

HOW ANTI-RELIGIOUS BIAS PREVENTED SCIENTISTS
FROM INITIALLY ACCEPTING THE BIG BANG THEORY
Entrenched Thinking Cuts Both Ways

Real Clear Science,
May 14th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y975t5ln

--

CANADA SUMMER JOBS ATTESTATION REQIREMENT
SEEN AS "UNFAIR" BY HALF OF CANADIANS, AND AS
"FAIR" BY THE OTHER HALF

Angus Reid Institute,
Vancouver, BC,
May 15th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yc5rs8zy

*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK
From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

Words have the power to change the world,
and that realization inspires me every day.
 
- Amanda Gorman

--

Families — keeping them together is very important.
It’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love and
that love is passed down the generations.

- Nanna Fejo

--

... Which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so
many days as humble as the spider's, what is beautiful
that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?
 
- Louise Erdrich

--

It is not love in the abstract that counts. We have
loved the workers, the poor, the oppressed, but
we have not loved “personally.” It is hard to love.
It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally
speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy’s
Resurrection?
 
He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train,
enduring chains and persecution for the love of
their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on
the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers
right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract
that are easy to love.
 
- Dorothy Day

--

It is possible even in the contradictions and confusions
of this life to keep the center of your being calm and
undisturbed. It is possible even in this life to go through
one hellish situation after another with strength and
confidence of spirit. It is possible to endure physical
pain and suffering while the mind and heart are filled
with peace and joy. That’s what I mean by being in
paradise even while you are still part of this earthly
scene of chance and change.

- Howard Hageman

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Aberjhani

Most people are slow to champion love because they fear
the transformation it brings into their lives.


And make no mistake about it: love does take over and
transform the schemes and operations of our egos in
a very mighty way.


(end)

*****

 

Friday 11 May 2018

Colleagues List, May13th, 2018

Vol. XIII No. 45

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

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

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

*****

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the latest edition of Colleagues List!

This week I discuss the re-publication of an old title by mythologist Joseph Campbell The Flight of the Wild Gander which I hope you will enjoy.

As usual, I include lots of new material to help you keep current in the world of religion and culture.

Wayne

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

THE FLIGHT OF THE WILD GANDER
Explorations in the Mythological Dimension
SELECTED ESSAYS 1944-1968
By Joseph Campbell

New World Library, Novato, CA
Reprinted February, 2018.  Paper.

256 pp. $21.25 CAD $18.95 US.
Kindle $9.99 CAD.
iSBN #978-1-60868--531-8

Publisher's Promo:

 
In The Flight of the Wild Gander, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell explores the individual and geographical origins of myth, outlining the full range of mythology from Grimm’s fairy tales to Native American legends. Originally published in 1969, this first collection of Campbell’s essays describes the symbolic content of stories: how they are linked to human experience and how they—along with our experiences—have changed over time.
 
Throughout, Campbell explores the function of mythology in everyday life and the forms it may take in the future. Included are two of Campbell’s first groundbreaking essays: “Bios and Mythos” and “Primitive Man As Metaphysician,” both of which examine the biological basis and necessity for story and mythology, and establish mythology as a basic function or fact of human nature. Campbell explores how the myth was born, as well as the personal experiences of the visionary medicine man through whose memory the myth was preserved.

--

Author's Bio:


Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.

He is widely credited with bringing mythology to a mass audience. His works, including the four-volume The Masks of God and The Power of Myth (with Bill Moyers) https://tinyurl.com/ydhem9vp  rank among the
classics in mythology and literature.
 
--

Author's Words:


(written for the first edition of this collection in 1969)

The writing of these essays occupied, or rather punctuated, a period of 24 years, during the whole course of which I was circling, and from many quarters, striving, to interpret, the mystery of mythology...

(In earlier books) I have set forth my basic thesis - that myths are a function of nature as well as culture and as necessary to the balanced maturation of the human psyche as is nourishment to the body...

The common tendency today to read the word "myth" as meaning "untruth" is almost certainly a symptom of the incredibility and consequent inefficiency of our own outdated mythic teachings, of both the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the New (Christian Bible); the Fall of Adam and Eve, Tablets of the Law; Fires of Hell; Second Coming of the Saviour, etc. and not only of those archaic Testaments, but also of the various, more modern secular (myths) that are being offered  today in their place... (but) neither a stale and overdue, nor a contrived, plastic mythology will serve (us).

(Here Campbell outlines how the various essays contained in this book help to recover what his understanding of true mythology is about.).

- from the Introduction

--

My Thoughts:

Over the years I have appreciated receiving first or new editions of Joseph Campbell's collected works  from The New World Library and the Joseph Campbell Foundation https://www.jcf.org/ - which now number 17 volumes, plus e-books, lecture collections and other presentations  by a most prolific author and speaker. He has been dead for more than thirty years but many of his writings continue to be best-sellers.
 
It would now appear that most if not all of Campbell's writings have been edited into the Collected Works and it is now possible to begin to think of his work as a complete oeuvre and not merely a disparate   "collection" of amazing erudition.
 
I have been a student of Campbell for almost thirty years and was drawn to him to help me understand the meaning of Canadian Indigenous People's myths. I continue to learn from members of First Nations members in various parts of the country (e.g. Northern Canada, Northern Ontario, Coastal, and the Stoney, Blackfoot and Cree nations closer to my home on Alberta.)

Discoveries about myth from Canada's Indigenous Peoples have helped me to better understand the mythologies of global cultures, so that when we travel to other continents today, I form a more complete sense of what Campbell was talking about more than fifty years ago. His whole life was spent expanding his mythological horizons and then discovering more about how the earth's peoples are linked through shared stories.

I have used the book The Power of Myth (written and video-extended interview with Bill Moyers) with many of my university classes over the years, and still believe it is one of the best "introductions" to Campbell.

When I read the Bible with classes in church today, Campbell helps me to gain a better understanding of what my own Judeo-Christian myths might mean. Using models from Campbell gives me a clearer, more helpful sense of what my own tradition is telling me. Inter-faith dialogue can be enhanced by having a firm grasp of one's own tradition as well as a mythological apparatus to listen to the stories from other religions and what they might mean.

Campbell's The Flight of the Wild Gander is an example of one of his earlier works that focused on mythology inherent in nature and culture.

If I were to advise you on how to approach Campbell today, I would suggest you start with The Power of Myth, and then move next to The Flight of the Wild Gander.
 
--
 
Review Shorts:
 
“In this book, as in his other work, Campbell displays his immense learning, drawing evidence to support his case from virtually every branch of human knowledge.”
The New York Times Book Review

“No one in our century — not Freud, not Thomas Mann, not Lévi-Strauss — has so brought the mythical sense of the world and its eternal figures back into our everyday consciousness.”
— James Hillman

“Campbell has become one of the rarest of intellectuals in American life: a serious thinker who has been embraced by the popular culture.”
Newsweek

“In our generation the mythographer who has had the fullest command of the huge scholarly literature, the analytic ability, the lucid prose, and the needed staying power has been Joseph Campbell.”
Commentary
 
---

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:

https://tinyurl.com/y7qlrmhb

Buy the book from New World Publishers:

*****
 
COLLEAGUE COMMENT

Dennis Gruending,
Ottawa, ON.

May 6th, 2018

Dear Wayne:

Thanks for giving considered attention to my new book
"Speeches That Changed Canada"  in your May 6th, 2018
edition of Colleagues List https://tinyurl.com/ybdwv6as


Thanks also for so being so faithful in collecting so many
interesting and worthwhile articles and stories each week.
That allows those who of us who follow you to find information
of importance in one place, and it is a valuable service to us.

Best wishes

Dennis

*****

COLLEAGUE COMMUNICATION

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan. BC

Personal Web Log
May 9th, 2018

"Save Someone's Life Today"
  https://tinyurl.com/yc9d5cvh


--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
May 7th, 2018

"Protest, Sanity and a Christian Response"
  https://tinyurl.com/y8h4hajo


--

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog
May 5th, 2018

"Start Here"
  https://tinyurl.com/yanx84yl



*****

NET NOTES

MY FRIEND, DAN BERRIGAN
A Tribute by Jim Forest

National Catholic Reporter,
May 8th, 2018

 
https://tinyurl.com/y7ucbe2n

--

JAMES CONE - THEOLOGICAL LEGACY
An Assessment of What He Did for Theology

The Christian Century,
April 30th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y9ojry2h

--

JIM BAKKER IS BACK WITH
NEW (OLD) MESSAGE
TV Preacher Returns After Thirty Years

Kansas City Star, (with video)
May 5th, 2018

--

LOREN MEAD -
ALBAN INSTITUTE FOUNDER - DIES
His Ecumenical Focus was on the Local Church 

The Christian Post,
May 10th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y74u9t4gwa
 
Remembering Loren B. Mead
Alban Institute, Duke University
May 8th, 2018
His Last Interview:
https://tinyurl.com/y7orvzbd

--

RECONCILIATION PROCESS
DID NOT START IN THE USA
Indigenous Healing Movement
Has a Long Canadian History

Winnipeg Free Press,
May 5th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y9cwwq8c

--

THE LONELY SUCCESS
OF PARAGUAY’S MENNONITES
Isolated, But Able to Live
Quite Well Through Hard Work

La Croix International
May 8th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yam2guh2

--

FOUR IN TEN CANADIAN ADULTS
HAVE NEVER MARRIED
Many Not Sure They Ever Want To

Angus Reid Institute Website,
May 7th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yambn3eg

--

AMERICAN LUTHERANS ELECT
TWO BLACK WOMEN BISHOPS
Historic Development for a
Largely White Denomination

Religion News Service,
May 7th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y7ce9tsx

--

CANADA TO FORMALLY APOLOGIZE
FOR REFUSING TO ADMIT JEWISH
REFUGEES FROM NAZI GERMANY
National Disgrace Finally Being Addressed

Global TV News Calgary
May 8th, 2018

https://tinyurl.com/yaqs7j63
 
 
 

 
 
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AMERICAN MEDIA TRAPPED
IN TRUMP CAULDRON

Globe and Mail,
May 9th, 2018

“The unemployment rate in the United States fell
to a paltry 3.9 per cent last month. That’s big news.
To find an American rate lower than today’s, you
have to go back half a century to the late 1960s.

The slight attention paid to the employment numbers
is an illustration of how the country’s image is being
excessively Trump-framed. We in the media are
consumed by his every utterance. No president has
sucked the oxygen out of every room like this one.
He has the news cycle by the throat. Big domestic
stories are lost in the daily anarchy, the shattering
of the norms, the circus never leaving town.”

– Lawrence Martin

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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
From Sojourners and the Bruderhoff online:

How many must die before our voices are heard,
how many must be tortured, dislocated, starved,
maddened ...


When, at what point, will you say no to this war?
 
- Daniel Berrigan

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What so many people today fail to realize is that
forgiveness is a door to peace and happiness.
Forgiving is not ignoring wrongdoing, but overcoming
the evil inside us and in our world with love. To forgive
is not just a command of Christ but the key to reconciling
all that is broken in our lives and relationships. We get
rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.


- Johann Christoph Arnold
 
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That a good man may have his back to the wall is no
more than we knew already; but that God could have
his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents forever.
Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt
that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity
alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have
been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds,
Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the
Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage
must necessarily mean that the soul passes a
breaking point – and does not break.


- G. K. Chesterton
 
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Is not the truth of the matter really this, that we are just
like a child who would rather be free from being under
his parents’ eyes? Is not this what we want? To be free
from being under the eyes of God? When Christ resolves
to become the Savior of the world, a lament goes through
all humanity. Sighing grievously they ask: Why do you do
this? You will make us all unhappy. Simply because to
become a Christian is the greatest human suffering. Christ,
being an absolute, explodes all the relativity whereby we
humans live. In order to live in the spirit rather than the
flesh, as he requires, one must go through crisis after
crisis, being made thereby, from a human point of view,
as unhappy as it is possible to be.

 
- Søren Kierkegaard
 
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To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything,
and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly
be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it
intact, you must give your heart to no one...Wrap
it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the
casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that
casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will
change. It will not be broken; it will become
unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.


The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk
of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside
heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all
the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.


- C. S. Lewis
 
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MOMENT IN TIME

Globe and Mail,
May 10th, 2018

NELSON MANDELA SWORN IN
AS SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT

May 10, 1994: It was the culmination of an
extraordinary journey, from his birth in a remote
Transkei village to his leadership of a liberation
movement that finally ended the apartheid system.

After 27 years in prison and more than four decades
of resistance to apartheid rule,Nelson Mandela was
sworn into office as the first democratically elected
president of South Africa. The glittering ceremony
at the Union Buildings in Pretoria was watched by
an estimated billion viewers around the world.

Three of Mandela’s prison warders were invited
to the ceremony, in a symbol of the reconciliation
policy for which he became famous. Police chiefs
and military officers, who once would have arrested
him, saluted him instead. Jets and helicopters
roared overhead in a noisy tribute. Nobody spoke
of the more intractable challenges, from economic
inequality to corruption, that would lie ahead in
South Africa’s future. This was a day to celebrate
a historic victory over a racist regime
.
“Never, never and never again shall it be that
this beautiful land will again experience the
oppression of one by another, and suffer the
indignity of being the skunk of the world,”
Mandela said in his inauguration speech.

“Let freedom reign.”

 – Geoffrey York


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OLDEST PRINTED AND DATED BOOK PUBLISHED

May 11, 868: The inscription on the five-metre scroll found
in a sealed Chinese cave was specific: It was “made for
universal free distribution by Wang Jie on the 13th of the
4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [Era].”  No one knows
who Wang Jie was. But that date, May 11, 868, marks his
scroll as the earliest known printed and dated book.

 
Nearly six centuries before Johannes Gutenberg printed
his Bible, the scroll of The Diamond Sutra demonstrated
the pioneering ability of Chinese craftsmen to print material
from wooden blocks, including an image of Buddha himself.
The Diamond Sutra, among Buddhism’s most sacred texts,
follows a conversation between an elderly disciple and the
Buddha, who says it “should be called The Diamond that
Cuts through Illusion because it has the capacity to cut
through all illusions,” including those that constitute the
material world. “Someone who looks for me in form or
seeks me in sound is on a mistaken path,” the Buddha
says. The scroll, stored in the British Library, is
remarkable both for the clarity of its printed contents,
which were preserved in an arid desert environment,
but also for the achievement it represents in human
communication.

 
– Nathan VanderKlippe

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Nelson Mandela

My hunger for the freedom of my own people
became a hunger for the freedom of all people,
white and black.

 
I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor
must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.
A [person] who takes away another [person's] freedom
is a prisoner of hatred ... is locked behind bars of prejudice
and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking
away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not
free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed
and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

 
(end)

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