Colleagues List June 16th, 2019

Vol. XIV No. 46

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address: waholst@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 have come close to the end of our Spiritual Travelers
trip follow-up tasks. It is quite an extensive activity,
but it also helps me work through what, in fact, we saw
and experienced.

My Special Item this week is a reflection on some of my
personal trip goals as Marlene and I complete our work
as hosts. If we want to make this something memorable
for our fellow-travelers, a good deal of investment is 
required. Hopefully you find these reflections helpful.

All other aspects of Colleagues List are included as usual.

Wayne

*****
 
SPECIAL ITEM

ST. DAVID'S SPIRITUAL TRAVELERS  -
A REFLECTION ON MY PERSONAL TRIP GOALS
FROM A VISIT TO EAST EUROPE & RUSSIA, 2019

INTRODUCTION

We are not merely tourists, although we are that!

We want to take an inclusive, spiritual approach to the
people and places we visit. We appreciate and learn
from the seven countries we have visited.

We encountered Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, the
Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and finally,
Russia.

Until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, all but
Austria were part of the Soviet Bloc. It was interesting
to see how all of these nations have evolved from the
place of stereotypes we have held, into the modern nations 
they are today.

Most of the countries we saw have a rich history of high
cultural endeavour - in art, music, dance, and there is
also much to be learned from the common folk arts
of the people.

The two major religious traditions we encountered were
the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. Both traditions,
as well as Protestantism, have a long history.

Another religious phenomenon is that of Judaism. Most
of the countries we visited had large Jewish populations
living there for centuries. The Holocaust and other anti-
Semitic movements have plagued this entire region.

We came to better understand that story.

Our spiritual travel encompassed history, culture, religion
and beyond. We encountered spirituality in many forms and
believe we understand it better now.

--

SOME PERSONAL TRAVEL HOPES

1. Begin to develop a sense of what people are thinking in
 these post-communist, post-atheist societies

Through numerous tour guides and others we met - both
general and local - we gained many insights about the post
- USSR societies we visited. Even some of our bus drivers
were most helpful. This region has suffered much over the
last century from both the Nazis and the Communists.

They are truly worthy of our pride and respect for being
profoundly resilient people.

They have much to teach us about the capacity of the
human spirit.

2. Develop an understanding of Canadian heritage;  discover
people and places from which many of our ancestors came.

It was helpful to hear many of our own tour group speak of
their family backgrounds who came to Canada from places
we visited and have now become firmly established,
contributing members of Canadian society.

This reality gives the lie to those in our time who have a
negative attitude to immigrants and refugees. Indeed,
most of our forbearers came to Canada with great hopes
for success in a new, welcoming land.

It was also good to see the progress many of the "old
countries" have been making after World War II and the
fall of communism.

3. Participate in exciting group learning with people of 
various backgrounds and professions.

We have all been greatly enriched by our shared learning
on this trip. Many tour members contributed to our group
growth. Some were invited to speak - for example – after
we visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa (the
Black Madonna) which is the Spiritual Centre of Poland.

Catholics in our group helped us to understand what it was
like for them to visit this place. Another tour member
explained, from his professional background, the geological
similarities and differences of Alberta with the terrain we
were encountering en route.

4. What can we bring back home as people of faith and
hope for humanity?

We have again this time been enriched by our discoveries
about people and places. In spite of turmoil and violence
in the world, we saw ample evidence of renewal after much
suffering and loss - as well as recovered confidence and
belief in the human potential for goodness and hope for
our future. We are people seeking to grow closer together.

We saw this, for example, during our visits to places like
Auschwitz and Moscow -- two locations that we in the West
have reacted to with despair and suspicion. Our discoveries
teach is that good can emerge from great evil, and peace
out of deep resentment.

5. We grow as a global community and members of an
ever-expanding world citizenship.

When we think about what a gift this trip has been, we
naturally want to share what we have discovered with others.                            

We are grateful that even though this venture might have
been prohibitive to our Canadian ancestors, we had the
resources and live in an era of peace in the world where
a pilgrimage like this was possible. 

CONCLUSION

Most of us would love to travel again. A trip like this takes
much planning and many resources - material and personal.
Who knows where our next journey will take us?

We are grateful for the opportunity, and the support that
came even from those who were unable to travel with us
this time.

- Wayne Holst

 

***** 

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog
June 14th, 2019

"Have You Ever Looked at the Stars?"
  https://tinyurl.com/y3q3x82v

--

Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL

Sightings,
June 10th, 2019

"The Death of Politics"
  https://tinyurl.com/y3co496f

--

Elfrieda Schroeder,
Winnipeg, MB

In Transit Blog
June 11th, 2019

"The Hansi Stories"
  https://tinyurl.com/y3c7pfud

--

Ron Rolheiser
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
June 10th, 2019

"Rachel Held Evans"
  https://tinyurl.com/yyuotgt8
 
--

Jim Taylor
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log,
June 12th, 2019

"Attitudes Are NOT Welcome"
  https://tinyurl.com/yxvqmh9w

*****

NET NOTES - June 16th, 2019

JOSIAH HENSEN
Before He Was "Uncle Tom"

Christianity Today,
June, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y2hdvfwr

--

MEGACHURCH MOLESTATION
How One Big Box Handled It

New York Times,
June 10th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yyy34pta

--

THE MAN WHO HELPED
FEED THE WORLD
Norman Borlaug Saved
Millions From Starvation

BBC News,
June 12th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y6ol3wns

--

ABUSE CRISIS TAKES TOLL
ON CANADIAN CATHOLICS
"Clean-Up Remains Elusive"

La Coix International
June 13th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y4y72zfq

--

WHAT PENTECOSTALISM IS ALL ABOUT
What it Offers the Post-Modern West

The Christian Post,
June 9th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y2d4mjdx

--

ONE YEAR ON, NOTHING
HAS CHANGED IN NORTH KOREA
Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

UCA News,
June 13th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y4u4cuj6

--

HONOUR OR INSULT?
Canadians Divided Over Sports Teams
With Indigenous Names

Angus Reid Institute,
June 11th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yys4fnke/

--

HONG KONG LEADER REFUSES TO
ACKNOWLEDGE PEOPLE’S CRIES
Honest Concerns are Rejected

UCA News
June 13thk, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y3wzqooa

--

CAN EL SALVDOR CONFRONT ITS
FUTURE WITHOUT FACING ITS PAST?
Nation Has Lurid History to Deal With

America Magazine,
June 12th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y26srg6k

--

IN MY CHURCH SOME OF US VOTED
FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP
BUT ALL OF US  PRAY FOR HIM -
Getting to Know Some
Southern Evangelical Folk

Religion News Service,
June 11th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y6a5vbkm

*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK - June 16th, 2019

Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword.
I will tell the truth wherever I please.

- Mary Harris Jones

--

Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves.
He is not out there; he is in you. Keep your
lamp burning, and you will recognize him.

- Mother Teresa

--

Making sense of painful experiences is sacred work.
It asks us to respect our own time, space, and language.
These are the unique fingerprints of our own healing.

- Rebecca Ray

--

Truth will never start out popular in a world more
concerned with marketability than righteousness.
It will initially suffer ridicule and even violence -
yet ultimately it is undeniable.

- Lauryn Hill

--

Where you have absolute solutions, you have no

need of faith. Faith is what you have in the absence

of knowledge. The reason this clash doesn’t bother
me any longer is because I have got, over the years,
a sense of the immense sweep of creation, of the
evolutionary process in everything, of how
incomprehensible God must necessarily be to be

the God of heaven and earth.

 

You can’t fit the Almighty into your intellectual categories.

 

.- Flannery O’Connor 

 

--

Are not our desires inseparably intertwined with the
continuation of life? Even the idea of eliminating
desire is fruitless. The desire to eliminate all desire
is still itself a desire. How can we find release and
peace by replacing one desire with another? Surely
we shall find peace not by eliminating desire, but by
finding its fulfillment and satisfaction in the
who created it.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

--

“I am wronging no one,” you say, “I am merely holding
on to what is mine.” What is yours! Who gave it to you
so that you could bring it into life with you? Why, you
are like a man who pinches a seat at the theater at the
expense of latecomers, claiming ownership of what was
for common use. That’s what the rich are like; having
seized what belongs to all they claim it as their own on
the basis of having got there first. Whereas if everyone
took for himself enough to meet his immediate needs
and released the rest for those in need of it, there
would be no rich and no poor.

- Basil of Caesarea

--

We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes
in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen
lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the
whispering sedge where only the wilder and more
solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls
with its belly close to the ground. At the same time
that we are earnest to explore and learn all things,
we require that all things be mysterious and
un-explorable, that land and sea be infinitely
wild, un-surveyed and unfathomed by us because
unfathomable.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be
refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast
and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks,
the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees,
the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three
weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness
our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing
freely where we never wander.

- Henry David Thoreau

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Henri J. M. Nouwen

I am with people who are poor in spirit. They teach me
that being is more important than doing, the heart is
more important than the mind, and doing things together
is more important than doing things alone.

(end)

*****