Weekly Recap fro Tuesday, 11 August 2015 from ProgressiveChristianity.org in Gig Harbor, Washington, Unites States - Racial Profiling - how safe are you? Thank you for your support and interest! 
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We are the Gods Now Jason Silva at Sydney Opera House
Keynote speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas – which took place at the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House, Jason Silva is an extraordinary new breed of philosopher who meshes philosophical wisdom of the ages with an infectious optimism for the future.
READ ON ... We are the Gods Now – Jason Silva at Sydney Opera House
by Jason Silva
“Part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from ‘The Matrix.’…”
JASON SILVA is an extraordinary new breed of philosopher who meshes philosophical wisdom of the ages with an infectious optimism for the future. Combining intriguing insights and a mastery of digital filmmaking, Jason delivers philosophical shots of espresso, which unravel the incredible possibilities the future has to offer the human race.
Called the “Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age” by The Atlantic, and a “Performance Philosopher” by the TED Conference, Jason draws from his experiences as a television personality, a media artist, a filmmaker, and a techno-philosopher to share his inspirational take on scientific and technological advancements, the evolution of intelligence, and the human condition. Using his series of short videos, which The Atlantic described as “movie trailers for ideas,” Jason explores the co-evolution of humans and technology. His videos have garnered over 2 million views.
Jason’s work is a kind of “existential jazz,” a fan says, “like a trumpet player or modern-day digital Mingus, he jams, riffs and rhapsodizes through a tumbling thicket of ideas with such a sharp and vital alacrity that it can take the breath away. He’s a modern performance philosopher, reviving the vibe of Tim Leary and Buckminster Fuller and revivifying the dialogue that they started decades ago.”
The Imaginary Foundation says, “Like some kind of Ontological DJ, he recompiles the source code of western philosophy by mixing and mashing it up into a form of recombinant creativity, which elevates understanding from the dry and prosaic, to a sensual cognitive romance.”
Join Jason Silva every week as he freestyles his way into the complex systems of society, technology and human existence and discusses the truth and beauty of science in a form of existential jazz. New episodes every Tuesday.
Watch More Shots of Awe on TestTube http://testtube.com/shotsofawe
Where Is My Black Body Safe in America?
Irene Monroe
The reality of unarmed African American women being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on African- American males.
READ ON ... Like so many African American women, myself included, Sandra Bland’s death, resulting from police brutality is not new news. The national attention it’s receiving is, however.
The reality of unarmed African American women being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on African- American males.
And when gender identity and sexual orientation come into play, the treatment by police can be harsher. For example, my spouse, who would drive her new BMW (a vehicle cops believe is stolen if a black male is behind the wheel) to and from work, was stopped suspiciously too often for the classic case of “driving while black.” And when the Cambridge cops realized she’s a woman, and a lesbian one at that, their unbridled homophobia surfaced. My spouse now takes the bus or walks to work as much as she can due to the trauma from the constant shakedowns.
A new report and campaign called “Say Her Name” addresses the lack of reporting, documenting, and accounting for the violations and death of African American women and girls at the hand of law enforcement officials.
Just last July, Marlene Pinnock’s, 51, was beat down by California Highway Patrol officer Daniel Andrew and was captured by a passing driver and spread widely on both internet and television. With Andrew straddling Pinnock on the ground and pummeling her with his fist, Pinnock told CBS News “He was trying to beat me to death … take my life away. For no reason. I did nothing to him.”
While it is not shocking news that African American women are arrested more often than white women in any given city across the country, what is shocking is the rate at which we are.
For example, a new report from the Center on Criminal and Juvenile Justice reveals that while African American women in San Francisco comprise of approximately 5.8 percent of the city’s female population, they make up 47 percent of female arrests. And these arrests too often result in death.
African American sisters like Rekia Boyd (March 2012, Chicago), Kimberlee Randle-King (September 2014, St. Louis), and Natasha McKenna (April 2015, Fairfax County, Virginia), to name just a few, are lives cut too short at the hands of law enforcement officials. While the country was reeling from the news of Bland’s death of July 13th, 18-year-old Kindra Chapman of Alabama was found dead in her jail cell following day.
Oddly, Randle-King’s, Bland’s and now Chapman’s death are all explained away as “self-inflicted asphyxiation,” a form of suicide extremely uncommon among African Americans given our not-to-distant relationship with this country’s history of lynching. And while African American women comprise the largest demographic group of females incarcerated, statistics reveal that black women committing suicide is the lowest of all groups, and hanging is not our method of choice.
The perceptions and stereotypes of African American women—combative, mouthy, not deferential enough and “angry black woman”— can sadly turn into deadly action as we see with Bland. Bland’s crime is what’s described as “contempt of cop.” She wasn’t obsequious or subservient enough when the officer asked her to extinguish her cigarette. And for something as minor as a traffic signal violation, the incident escalated out of control. But when the dominant culture doesn’t see and hear African-American voices about our pains, fears, vulnerabilities our humanity is distorted and made invisible through a prism of racist and sexist stereotypes. So, too, is our suffering.
When Bland was found hanging from a noose made of plastic bags in her Waller County jail cell, the coroner’s report corroborated the claim stating there were no obvious signs of such a violent struggle. But like Bland’s family and friends, I too, cry out foul play. And it’s because of Waller County’s long and prideful history for keeping blacks in their place, and lynching was the preferred method.
I posit that if Bland did not commit suicide then clearly it was a lynching— a reality in 2015 too harsh and hard to fathom, even in a remote and still racially segregated corner of Texas.
But Waller County, which is less than an hour north of Houston, was a county notorious for lynching, and old habits die hard, if they die at all. The Equal Justice Initiative states that African Americans were lynched disproportionately higher in Waller County than in any other county in the state between 1877 and 1950. The memories of family and friends lynched still lives on in the collective oral history of Waller County’s African American community. “In this county, they’ve been hanging and killing Negroes since the Civil War.” an old buddy of Bland’s, Holice Cook, told the Washington Post.
When Bland tweeted on April 8th “AT FIRST THEY USED A NOOSE, NOW ALL THEY DO IS SHOOT #BlackLivesMatter #SandySpeaks,” she, too, could not fathom such act.
But with the recent deaths of Randle-King’s, Chapman’s and Bland’s there’s a pattern evolving, one in which sadly we cannot conclusively hang up the thought of lynching for good.
Croning Circle Ritual
The reality of unarmed African American women being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on African- American males.
READ ON ... Like so many African American women, myself included, Sandra Bland’s death, resulting from police brutality is not new news. The national attention it’s receiving is, however.
The reality of unarmed African American women being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on African- American males.
And when gender identity and sexual orientation come into play, the treatment by police can be harsher. For example, my spouse, who would drive her new BMW (a vehicle cops believe is stolen if a black male is behind the wheel) to and from work, was stopped suspiciously too often for the classic case of “driving while black.” And when the Cambridge cops realized she’s a woman, and a lesbian one at that, their unbridled homophobia surfaced. My spouse now takes the bus or walks to work as much as she can due to the trauma from the constant shakedowns.
A new report and campaign called “Say Her Name” addresses the lack of reporting, documenting, and accounting for the violations and death of African American women and girls at the hand of law enforcement officials.
Just last July, Marlene Pinnock’s, 51, was beat down by California Highway Patrol officer Daniel Andrew and was captured by a passing driver and spread widely on both internet and television. With Andrew straddling Pinnock on the ground and pummeling her with his fist, Pinnock told CBS News “He was trying to beat me to death … take my life away. For no reason. I did nothing to him.”
While it is not shocking news that African American women are arrested more often than white women in any given city across the country, what is shocking is the rate at which we are.
For example, a new report from the Center on Criminal and Juvenile Justice reveals that while African American women in San Francisco comprise of approximately 5.8 percent of the city’s female population, they make up 47 percent of female arrests. And these arrests too often result in death.
African American sisters like Rekia Boyd (March 2012, Chicago), Kimberlee Randle-King (September 2014, St. Louis), and Natasha McKenna (April 2015, Fairfax County, Virginia), to name just a few, are lives cut too short at the hands of law enforcement officials. While the country was reeling from the news of Bland’s death of July 13th, 18-year-old Kindra Chapman of Alabama was found dead in her jail cell following day.
Oddly, Randle-King’s, Bland’s and now Chapman’s death are all explained away as “self-inflicted asphyxiation,” a form of suicide extremely uncommon among African Americans given our not-to-distant relationship with this country’s history of lynching. And while African American women comprise the largest demographic group of females incarcerated, statistics reveal that black women committing suicide is the lowest of all groups, and hanging is not our method of choice.
The perceptions and stereotypes of African American women—combative, mouthy, not deferential enough and “angry black woman”— can sadly turn into deadly action as we see with Bland. Bland’s crime is what’s described as “contempt of cop.” She wasn’t obsequious or subservient enough when the officer asked her to extinguish her cigarette. And for something as minor as a traffic signal violation, the incident escalated out of control. But when the dominant culture doesn’t see and hear African-American voices about our pains, fears, vulnerabilities our humanity is distorted and made invisible through a prism of racist and sexist stereotypes. So, too, is our suffering.
When Bland was found hanging from a noose made of plastic bags in her Waller County jail cell, the coroner’s report corroborated the claim stating there were no obvious signs of such a violent struggle. But like Bland’s family and friends, I too, cry out foul play. And it’s because of Waller County’s long and prideful history for keeping blacks in their place, and lynching was the preferred method.
I posit that if Bland did not commit suicide then clearly it was a lynching— a reality in 2015 too harsh and hard to fathom, even in a remote and still racially segregated corner of Texas.
But Waller County, which is less than an hour north of Houston, was a county notorious for lynching, and old habits die hard, if they die at all. The Equal Justice Initiative states that African Americans were lynched disproportionately higher in Waller County than in any other county in the state between 1877 and 1950. The memories of family and friends lynched still lives on in the collective oral history of Waller County’s African American community. “In this county, they’ve been hanging and killing Negroes since the Civil War.” an old buddy of Bland’s, Holice Cook, told the Washington Post.
When Bland tweeted on April 8th “AT FIRST THEY USED A NOOSE, NOW ALL THEY DO IS SHOOT #BlackLivesMatter #SandySpeaks,” she, too, could not fathom such act.
But with the recent deaths of Randle-King’s, Chapman’s and Bland’s there’s a pattern evolving, one in which sadly we cannot conclusively hang up the thought of lynching for good.
Croning Circle Ritual
Louise Rasmussen
Walk The Labyrinth - Meditate - Open The Circle - Readings - Close the Circle ...
READ ON ... Before we start, we all will exit outside to the labyrinth and begin our silence. Walk the labyrinth to the center and back out while meditating on quieting and listening to the Divine within. As you exit the labyrinth, please keep silence as you go back to the meeting circle and continue your meditation. The silence will end with the sound of the bell.
After the Meditation
Celebrant or volunteer reader:
We want to look at the closing of our maiden and mother years as a passage to be celebrated, and to look at the years ahead as a time filled with possibility. We are no longer who we were before. Now is the time to step over the threshold into the fullness of being a crone.
Today we are going to say goodbye to our childbearing and child rearing years. We are going to celebrate being free from pregnancy, menstruation and cramps, but we are also going to honor those things as well. And we are going to visualize a future in which our happiness comes from within and is based on the confidence and knowledge that our years have given us.
This ritual has four parts. First, on the Via Positiva, we cast a sacred circle as we acknowledge the magic of our childbearing capability, whether or not we’ve ever given physical birth. Then we’ll read wisdom to each other from diverse sources.
Following the Via Negativa, we will say goodbye to the things we are ready to leave behind.
In the Via Creativa, we will chant and move, and in doing this we will replace our old things with new, creative energy and unmatched wisdom – the energy and wisdom that can only be gained with age and experience and community.
Lastly, we enter the Via Transformativa, time to take our change out into the world by celebrating the Agape meal, nourishing each other in soul and body.
We use the white candle, because it symbolizes the moon, which has traditionally been associated with the feminine…. Intuition, feeling and the cycles of nature.
Opening the Circle
Light the candles of the four directions starting with the white candle in the middle
Celebrant:
(white candle lit)
Ancient Goddess, Mother of All Life, we stand at a threshold. Behind us are our childbearing and child rearing years. Ahead of us are doors through which we cannot see.
Group of Crone Initiates:
(All turn to face the East, yellow candle lit)
Spirit of the East, element of Air, through your energy I was able to bring forth new life, as does the sun when it rises in the East.
(Turn to face the South, green candle is lit)
Spirit of the South, element of Fire, through your energy I was able to make a tinny spark into the flame of life.
(Turn to face the West, black candle is lit)
Spirit of the West, element of Water, through your energy I was able to contain and nurture new life inside my body.
(Turn to face the North, purple candle is lit)
Spirit of the North, element of Earth, through your energy I was able to unite spirit and matter into a new life, feeding and giving growth as our mother earth nurtures us.
(Return to face the East)
But the wheel has turned and my blood no longer flows as it did before. My time for growing new life has ended. Behind me are the days of the flesh. Ahead of me are the days of the spirit.
Readings of Wisdom
Celebrant:
What we have done is to cast a sacred circle. Now that we are within the circle, we will share readings of Wisdom by taking turns reading them out loud.
(A basket of readings is passed and read out loud, one person at a time, until all wisdom readings have been shared)
Closing the Circle as Crones
Eternal Wisdom, source of our being and center of all our longing, in You our sisters have lived to a strong age; women of dignity and wit, in loving insight now blessed crones. May the phase into which they have entered bear the marks of your spirit. May they ever be borne up by the fierce and tender love of friends and by You, most intimate friend; and clothed in your light, may they grow in grace as they advance their years. Amen
(Medicine bags are given at this time)
, take this medicine bag as a tool of power for your spiritual journey. The contents are totems for this new stage of life. The moon rocks represent the wisdom you receive from your Divine connection to the Universe, the stars remind you to lift up your ideas, and the leaves remind you to stay grounded in the Earth, our Mother. Keep the bag close to you, fill it with your intent, and grow as a crone.
Spoken as group:
(All face to the East, the yellow candle)
May this be the day of my rebirth freed from the burdens of the past. This is the beginning of a new life, guided by the gifts of clear thinking, inspiration and experience.
(To the North, the purple candle)
This is my new beginning, receiving the gifts of strength and solidarity.
(To the West, the black candle)
Behold I am reborn, receiving gifts of intuition and knowledge.
(To the South, the green candle)
Behold I am born anew, receiving gifts of creativity and energy.
(Return to the East)
The circle is now closed and the passage is complete.
Chant
(drummer leads the chant and the spiral dance outside for the Agape meal; the last dancer takes the white candle)
We are the flow. We are the ebb. We are the weavers. We are the web.
Agape
Celebrant
As we walk the Via Transfomativa, we know we are called to put our faith and change into action. Here is a story for us to remember:
As she dreamed, a woman was walking through a lush green forest, full of tall trees.
She sensed an opening ahead, a meadow, and in the corner of the meadow,
a tent, where three very old men were knitting sweaters. She watched one
of the old men intently, and was amazed to see that he had no pattern.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“Oh, I have a pattern. It’s in that ancient book enthroned in the meadow,
which is filled with religious poems. We pray and reflect on an ancient
poem, and that gives us a pattern for the sweater. Would you like to have one?”
“Oh, yes!” the woman cried, though she thought in her heart that such a sweater would be very costly.
The old man then added, “It’s free. I will make one just for you.”
When she woke she knew there was a weaving together inside of her that would end up being something beautiful.
Today’s Agape meal, in honor of our crones, will consist of spring water that has basked in the light of the full moon and of chocolate from the earth.
(Each person holds the plate for her neighbor who breaks off her own piece of chocolate while her server tells her)
Like this chocolate we enter the sweetening stage of our life.
(The chalice of moon water is passed as each says)
Like this moon water, we turn our creative energy to birthing the spirit in the world.
Celebrant
As we close this ritual, let us remember the words of Marian Woodman who wrote:
“The crone is the woman who has faced crossroads in her life and has chosen to live with acceptance and love, rather than closing down with resentment. She has expanded into life, losing the ego drive and opening to the full energy of the unconscious. She is a surrendered instrument through which the god and goddess energy moves. She comes from love, rather than from ego power. The dark side of the crone is power, because she has intuitive powers that can give her control of other people if she wants to use them in that way. The other side of the crone is the love flowing through her that is an immense healing presence. She has a very finely developed masculinity. A highly developed discrimination, discernment, capacity to act. She is like a tuning fork in an environment. Because of who she is, her environment is different because she is there.”
(candles are extinguished)
Amen
References:
Rites of Passage by Rev. Amy E. Long
Dreaming in the Dark by Starhawk
The Wisdom of Women by Carol LaRusso
Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Life Prayers by Gail Ricciuti
Weaving the Threads of Our Lives by Carol Bialock, RSCJ
Crone Wisdom Readings
These can be printed on individual papers, rolled up with a ribbon, and placed in a basket for the ritual
Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells: the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, and the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds in beach living: one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask, and one’s armor. Was that armor put on to protect one from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be!
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Midlife brings with it an invitation to accept ourselves as we truly are, embracing the darker sides of ourselves as well as the good, the dark sides of our cultures as well as the good. We have an instinctive fear of facing the dark mysteries. The shadow or unknown parts of us belong to an inner world that is usually suppressed in the first half of life…. But by confronting our mysterious and shadowy center, we tap into life’s revitalizing energies and gain access to our innermost self, which contains the key to a new understanding of our life’s meaning.
Paula Payne Hardin
Maturity involves the synthesis of all you’ve learned. It’s the time of the soul, the essence of all you are. As adolescence unleashed the mind, childhood the heart, and birth cycle the body, maturity brings out the soul. The keys to maturity are commitment and responsibility.
It’s time to stop studying, stop preparing, stop searching and to start teaching, doing, manifesting, producing. The rehearsals are over; the show is on.
Gabrielle Roth
During much of the feminist movement women redesigned themselves as men and disregarded their greatest gifts: open-mindedness, flexibility, intuition. Now they are riding themselves of stereotypes and cultural myths and tuning in to what it really means to be a woman- seeing menopause as a sacred rite of passage, for example. Women are taking their gifts seriously, to gently persuade, to gently be leaders.
Marilyn McGuire
How would it be different if the fertility of earth and women were celebrated as expressions of divinity and if women elders were appreciated as wise women? Just as menses is a connection between women and the moon and between women and Nature, and as women retained their blood in their body for nine months to make a baby, menopause would be considered even more awesome, for now it could be said that she retained the blood in her body to make wisdom.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
In that moment you are drunk on yourself,
You are withered, withered like autumn leaves.
That moment you leap free of yourself,
Winter to you appears in the dazzling robes of spring.
Rumi
Experience! Experience! Has brought me a comfort and a modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all the mountains of the world.
Mary Oliver
Everything is laid out for you.
Your path is straight ahead of you.
Sometimes it’s invisible, but it’s there.
You may not know where it’s going,
But you have to follow the path.
It’s the path to the creator.
It’s the only path there is.
Chief Leon Shenandoah
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hand but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless others now.
Teresa of Avila
Each day I visit black Mary, who looks at me with her wise face, older than old and ugly in a beautiful way. It seems the crevices run deeper into her body each time I see her, that her wooden skin ages before my eyes. I never get tired of looking at her thick arm jutting out, her fist like a bulb about to explode. She is a muscle of love, this Mary.
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
You will be teachers for each other. You will come together in circles and speak your truth to each other. The time has come for women to accept their spiritual responsibility for our planet. “Will you help us?” I asked the assembled patriarchs. “We are your brothers,” they answered…. “We no longer know the way. Our ways do not work anymore. You women must find a new way.”
Patricia Hopkins, Sherry Rochester, The Feminine Face of God
There is a goodness, a wisdom that arises, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to save us if we let it, and it arises from within us, like the force that drives green shoots to break the winter ground, it will arise and drive us into a great blossoming like a pear tree, into flowering, into fragrance, fruit and song, into the wild wind dancing, sun shimmering, into the aliveness of it all, into that part of ourselves that can never be defiled, defeated, or destroyed, but that comes back to life, time and time again, that lives –always– that does not die. Into the Divine.
China Galland, The Bond Between Women
We long to know ourselves deeply, to know the place in which we can discover the Divine. We long to temper and hone our gifts, to put them into action in our world. When we allow ourselves to be whole, we allow new visions to emerge within us and within our cultures.
Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome… You will love again the stranger who was yourself… Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another… Take down the love letters from the bookshelf… peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life!
Derek Walcott
As we work in compassion to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us. No need to wait. As we care enough to take risks, we loosen the grip of ego and begin to come home to our true nature. The world itself, if we are bold enough to love it, acts through us. It does not ask uus to be pure or perfect, but only to care, to harness the sweet, pure intention of our deepest passions and to ‘fly’ like a bodhisattva!
Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self
Weekly LiturgyWeek of: August 2nd, 2015
Different Approaches
So many ways to experience the Spirit… and yet if one believes that the universe comprises an objective reality that exists whether or not the human species is present, then the Spirit in all these experiences is actually the same underlying phenomenon. It is our own specific interpretation, filtered through culture and religion and tradition, that gives each experience its unique flavor and color. Spirit is One.
READ ON ...
Walk The Labyrinth - Meditate - Open The Circle - Readings - Close the Circle ...
READ ON ... Before we start, we all will exit outside to the labyrinth and begin our silence. Walk the labyrinth to the center and back out while meditating on quieting and listening to the Divine within. As you exit the labyrinth, please keep silence as you go back to the meeting circle and continue your meditation. The silence will end with the sound of the bell.
After the Meditation
Celebrant or volunteer reader:
We want to look at the closing of our maiden and mother years as a passage to be celebrated, and to look at the years ahead as a time filled with possibility. We are no longer who we were before. Now is the time to step over the threshold into the fullness of being a crone.
Today we are going to say goodbye to our childbearing and child rearing years. We are going to celebrate being free from pregnancy, menstruation and cramps, but we are also going to honor those things as well. And we are going to visualize a future in which our happiness comes from within and is based on the confidence and knowledge that our years have given us.
This ritual has four parts. First, on the Via Positiva, we cast a sacred circle as we acknowledge the magic of our childbearing capability, whether or not we’ve ever given physical birth. Then we’ll read wisdom to each other from diverse sources.
Following the Via Negativa, we will say goodbye to the things we are ready to leave behind.
In the Via Creativa, we will chant and move, and in doing this we will replace our old things with new, creative energy and unmatched wisdom – the energy and wisdom that can only be gained with age and experience and community.
Lastly, we enter the Via Transformativa, time to take our change out into the world by celebrating the Agape meal, nourishing each other in soul and body.
We use the white candle, because it symbolizes the moon, which has traditionally been associated with the feminine…. Intuition, feeling and the cycles of nature.
Opening the Circle
Light the candles of the four directions starting with the white candle in the middle
Celebrant:
(white candle lit)
Ancient Goddess, Mother of All Life, we stand at a threshold. Behind us are our childbearing and child rearing years. Ahead of us are doors through which we cannot see.
Group of Crone Initiates:
(All turn to face the East, yellow candle lit)
Spirit of the East, element of Air, through your energy I was able to bring forth new life, as does the sun when it rises in the East.
(Turn to face the South, green candle is lit)
Spirit of the South, element of Fire, through your energy I was able to make a tinny spark into the flame of life.
(Turn to face the West, black candle is lit)
Spirit of the West, element of Water, through your energy I was able to contain and nurture new life inside my body.
(Turn to face the North, purple candle is lit)
Spirit of the North, element of Earth, through your energy I was able to unite spirit and matter into a new life, feeding and giving growth as our mother earth nurtures us.
(Return to face the East)
But the wheel has turned and my blood no longer flows as it did before. My time for growing new life has ended. Behind me are the days of the flesh. Ahead of me are the days of the spirit.
Readings of Wisdom
Celebrant:
What we have done is to cast a sacred circle. Now that we are within the circle, we will share readings of Wisdom by taking turns reading them out loud.
(A basket of readings is passed and read out loud, one person at a time, until all wisdom readings have been shared)
Closing the Circle as Crones
Eternal Wisdom, source of our being and center of all our longing, in You our sisters have lived to a strong age; women of dignity and wit, in loving insight now blessed crones. May the phase into which they have entered bear the marks of your spirit. May they ever be borne up by the fierce and tender love of friends and by You, most intimate friend; and clothed in your light, may they grow in grace as they advance their years. Amen
(Medicine bags are given at this time)
, take this medicine bag as a tool of power for your spiritual journey. The contents are totems for this new stage of life. The moon rocks represent the wisdom you receive from your Divine connection to the Universe, the stars remind you to lift up your ideas, and the leaves remind you to stay grounded in the Earth, our Mother. Keep the bag close to you, fill it with your intent, and grow as a crone.
Spoken as group:
(All face to the East, the yellow candle)
May this be the day of my rebirth freed from the burdens of the past. This is the beginning of a new life, guided by the gifts of clear thinking, inspiration and experience.
(To the North, the purple candle)
This is my new beginning, receiving the gifts of strength and solidarity.
(To the West, the black candle)
Behold I am reborn, receiving gifts of intuition and knowledge.
(To the South, the green candle)
Behold I am born anew, receiving gifts of creativity and energy.
(Return to the East)
The circle is now closed and the passage is complete.
Chant
(drummer leads the chant and the spiral dance outside for the Agape meal; the last dancer takes the white candle)
We are the flow. We are the ebb. We are the weavers. We are the web.
Agape
Celebrant
As we walk the Via Transfomativa, we know we are called to put our faith and change into action. Here is a story for us to remember:
As she dreamed, a woman was walking through a lush green forest, full of tall trees.
She sensed an opening ahead, a meadow, and in the corner of the meadow,
a tent, where three very old men were knitting sweaters. She watched one
of the old men intently, and was amazed to see that he had no pattern.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“Oh, I have a pattern. It’s in that ancient book enthroned in the meadow,
which is filled with religious poems. We pray and reflect on an ancient
poem, and that gives us a pattern for the sweater. Would you like to have one?”
“Oh, yes!” the woman cried, though she thought in her heart that such a sweater would be very costly.
The old man then added, “It’s free. I will make one just for you.”
When she woke she knew there was a weaving together inside of her that would end up being something beautiful.
Today’s Agape meal, in honor of our crones, will consist of spring water that has basked in the light of the full moon and of chocolate from the earth.
(Each person holds the plate for her neighbor who breaks off her own piece of chocolate while her server tells her)
Like this chocolate we enter the sweetening stage of our life.
(The chalice of moon water is passed as each says)
Like this moon water, we turn our creative energy to birthing the spirit in the world.
Celebrant
As we close this ritual, let us remember the words of Marian Woodman who wrote:
“The crone is the woman who has faced crossroads in her life and has chosen to live with acceptance and love, rather than closing down with resentment. She has expanded into life, losing the ego drive and opening to the full energy of the unconscious. She is a surrendered instrument through which the god and goddess energy moves. She comes from love, rather than from ego power. The dark side of the crone is power, because she has intuitive powers that can give her control of other people if she wants to use them in that way. The other side of the crone is the love flowing through her that is an immense healing presence. She has a very finely developed masculinity. A highly developed discrimination, discernment, capacity to act. She is like a tuning fork in an environment. Because of who she is, her environment is different because she is there.”
(candles are extinguished)
Amen
References:
Rites of Passage by Rev. Amy E. Long
Dreaming in the Dark by Starhawk
The Wisdom of Women by Carol LaRusso
Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Life Prayers by Gail Ricciuti
Weaving the Threads of Our Lives by Carol Bialock, RSCJ
Crone Wisdom Readings
These can be printed on individual papers, rolled up with a ribbon, and placed in a basket for the ritual
Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells: the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, and the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds in beach living: one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask, and one’s armor. Was that armor put on to protect one from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be!
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Midlife brings with it an invitation to accept ourselves as we truly are, embracing the darker sides of ourselves as well as the good, the dark sides of our cultures as well as the good. We have an instinctive fear of facing the dark mysteries. The shadow or unknown parts of us belong to an inner world that is usually suppressed in the first half of life…. But by confronting our mysterious and shadowy center, we tap into life’s revitalizing energies and gain access to our innermost self, which contains the key to a new understanding of our life’s meaning.
Paula Payne Hardin
Maturity involves the synthesis of all you’ve learned. It’s the time of the soul, the essence of all you are. As adolescence unleashed the mind, childhood the heart, and birth cycle the body, maturity brings out the soul. The keys to maturity are commitment and responsibility.
It’s time to stop studying, stop preparing, stop searching and to start teaching, doing, manifesting, producing. The rehearsals are over; the show is on.
Gabrielle Roth
During much of the feminist movement women redesigned themselves as men and disregarded their greatest gifts: open-mindedness, flexibility, intuition. Now they are riding themselves of stereotypes and cultural myths and tuning in to what it really means to be a woman- seeing menopause as a sacred rite of passage, for example. Women are taking their gifts seriously, to gently persuade, to gently be leaders.
Marilyn McGuire
How would it be different if the fertility of earth and women were celebrated as expressions of divinity and if women elders were appreciated as wise women? Just as menses is a connection between women and the moon and between women and Nature, and as women retained their blood in their body for nine months to make a baby, menopause would be considered even more awesome, for now it could be said that she retained the blood in her body to make wisdom.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
In that moment you are drunk on yourself,
You are withered, withered like autumn leaves.
That moment you leap free of yourself,
Winter to you appears in the dazzling robes of spring.
Rumi
Experience! Experience! Has brought me a comfort and a modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all the mountains of the world.
Mary Oliver
Everything is laid out for you.
Your path is straight ahead of you.
Sometimes it’s invisible, but it’s there.
You may not know where it’s going,
But you have to follow the path.
It’s the path to the creator.
It’s the only path there is.
Chief Leon Shenandoah
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hand but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless others now.
Teresa of Avila
Each day I visit black Mary, who looks at me with her wise face, older than old and ugly in a beautiful way. It seems the crevices run deeper into her body each time I see her, that her wooden skin ages before my eyes. I never get tired of looking at her thick arm jutting out, her fist like a bulb about to explode. She is a muscle of love, this Mary.
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
You will be teachers for each other. You will come together in circles and speak your truth to each other. The time has come for women to accept their spiritual responsibility for our planet. “Will you help us?” I asked the assembled patriarchs. “We are your brothers,” they answered…. “We no longer know the way. Our ways do not work anymore. You women must find a new way.”
Patricia Hopkins, Sherry Rochester, The Feminine Face of God
There is a goodness, a wisdom that arises, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to save us if we let it, and it arises from within us, like the force that drives green shoots to break the winter ground, it will arise and drive us into a great blossoming like a pear tree, into flowering, into fragrance, fruit and song, into the wild wind dancing, sun shimmering, into the aliveness of it all, into that part of ourselves that can never be defiled, defeated, or destroyed, but that comes back to life, time and time again, that lives –always– that does not die. Into the Divine.
China Galland, The Bond Between Women
We long to know ourselves deeply, to know the place in which we can discover the Divine. We long to temper and hone our gifts, to put them into action in our world. When we allow ourselves to be whole, we allow new visions to emerge within us and within our cultures.
Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome… You will love again the stranger who was yourself… Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another… Take down the love letters from the bookshelf… peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life!
Derek Walcott
As we work in compassion to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us. No need to wait. As we care enough to take risks, we loosen the grip of ego and begin to come home to our true nature. The world itself, if we are bold enough to love it, acts through us. It does not ask uus to be pure or perfect, but only to care, to harness the sweet, pure intention of our deepest passions and to ‘fly’ like a bodhisattva!
Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self
Weekly LiturgyWeek of: August 2nd, 2015
Different Approaches
So many ways to experience the Spirit… and yet if one believes that the universe comprises an objective reality that exists whether or not the human species is present, then the Spirit in all these experiences is actually the same underlying phenomenon. It is our own specific interpretation, filtered through culture and religion and tradition, that gives each experience its unique flavor and color. Spirit is One.
READ ON ...
Croning Circle Ritual by Louise Rasmussen
Before we start, we all will exit outside to the labyrinth and begin our silence. Walk the labyrinth to the center and back out while meditating on quieting and listening to the Divine within.
read more
Before we start, we all will exit outside to the labyrinth and begin our silence. Walk the labyrinth to the center and back out while meditating on quieting and listening to the Divine within. As you exit the labyrinth, please keep silence as you go back to the meeting circle and continue your meditation. The silence will end with the sound of the bell.
After the Meditation
Celebrant or volunteer reader:
We want to look at the closing of our maiden and mother years as a passage to be celebrated, and to look at the years ahead as a time filled with possibility. We are no longer who we were before. Now is the time to step over the threshold into the fullness of being a crone.
Today we are going to say goodbye to our childbearing and child rearing years. We are going to celebrate being free from pregnancy, menstruation and cramps, but we are also going to honor those things as well. And we are going to visualize a future in which our happiness comes from within and is based on the confidence and knowledge that our years have given us.
This ritual has four parts. First, on the Via Positiva, we cast a sacred circle as we acknowledge the magic of our childbearing capability, whether or not we’ve ever given physical birth. Then we’ll read wisdom to each other from diverse sources.
Following the Via Negativa, we will say goodbye to the things we are ready to leave behind.
In the Via Creativa, we will chant and move, and in doing this we will replace our old things with new, creative energy and unmatched wisdom – the energy and wisdom that can only be gained with age and experience and community.
Lastly, we enter the Via Transformativa, time to take our change out into the world by celebrating the Agape meal, nourishing each other in soul and body.
We use the white candle, because it symbolizes the moon, which has traditionally been associated with the feminine…. Intuition, feeling and the cycles of nature.
Opening the Circle
Light the candles of the four directions starting with the white candle in the middle
Celebrant:
(white candle lit)
Ancient Goddess, Mother of All Life, we stand at a threshold. Behind us are our childbearing and child rearing years. Ahead of us are doors through which we cannot see.
Group of Crone Initiates:
(All turn to face the East, yellow candle lit)
Spirit of the East, element of Air, through your energy I was able to bring forth new life, as does the sun when it rises in the East.
(Turn to face the South, green candle is lit)
Spirit of the South, element of Fire, through your energy I was able to make a tinny spark into the flame of life.
(Turn to face the West, black candle is lit)
Spirit of the West, element of Water, through your energy I was able to contain and nurture new life inside my body.
(Turn to face the North, purple candle is lit)
Spirit of the North, element of Earth, through your energy I was able to unite spirit and matter into a new life, feeding and giving growth as our mother earth nurtures us.
(Return to face the East)
But the wheel has turned and my blood no longer flows as it did before. My time for growing new life has ended. Behind me are the days of the flesh. Ahead of me are the days of the spirit.
Readings of Wisdom
Celebrant:
What we have done is to cast a sacred circle. Now that we are within the circle, we will share readings of Wisdom by taking turns reading them out loud.
(A basket of readings is passed and read out loud, one person at a time, until all wisdom readings have been shared)
Closing the Circle as Crones
Eternal Wisdom, source of our being and center of all our longing, in You our sisters have lived to a strong age; women of dignity and wit, in loving insight now blessed crones. May the phase into which they have entered bear the marks of your spirit. May they ever be borne up by the fierce and tender love of friends and by You, most intimate friend; and clothed in your light, may they grow in grace as they advance their years. Amen
(Medicine bags are given at this time)
, take this medicine bag as a tool of power for your spiritual journey. The contents are totems for this new stage of life. The moon rocks represent the wisdom you receive from your Divine connection to the Universe, the stars remind you to lift up your ideas, and the leaves remind you to stay grounded in the Earth, our Mother. Keep the bag close to you, fill it with your intent, and grow as a crone.
Spoken as group:
(All face to the East, the yellow candle)
May this be the day of my rebirth freed from the burdens of the past. This is the beginning of a new life, guided by the gifts of clear thinking, inspiration and experience.
(To the North, the purple candle)
This is my new beginning, receiving the gifts of strength and solidarity.
(To the West, the black candle)
Behold I am reborn, receiving gifts of intuition and knowledge.
(To the South, the green candle)
Behold I am born anew, receiving gifts of creativity and energy.
(Return to the East)
The circle is now closed and the passage is complete.
Chant
(drummer leads the chant and the spiral dance outside for the Agape meal; the last dancer takes the white candle)
We are the flow. We are the ebb. We are the weavers. We are the web.
Agape
Celebrant
As we walk the Via Transfomativa, we know we are called to put our faith and change into action. Here is a story for us to remember:
As she dreamed, a woman was walking through a lush green forest, full of tall trees.
She sensed an opening ahead, a meadow, and in the corner of the meadow,
a tent, where three very old men were knitting sweaters. She watched one
of the old men intently, and was amazed to see that he had no pattern.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“Oh, I have a pattern. It’s in that ancient book enthroned in the meadow,
which is filled with religious poems. We pray and reflect on an ancient
poem, and that gives us a pattern for the sweater. Would you like to have one?”
“Oh, yes!” the woman cried, though she thought in her heart that such a sweater would be very costly.
The old man then added, “It’s free. I will make one just for you.”
When she woke she knew there was a weaving together inside of her that would end up being something beautiful.
Today’s Agape meal, in honor of our crones, will consist of spring water that has basked in the light of the full moon and of chocolate from the earth.
(Each person holds the plate for her neighbor who breaks off her own piece of chocolate while her server tells her)
Like this chocolate we enter the sweetening stage of our life.
(The chalice of moon water is passed as each says)
Like this moon water, we turn our creative energy to birthing the spirit in the world.
Celebrant
As we close this ritual, let us remember the words of Marian Woodman who wrote:
“The crone is the woman who has faced crossroads in her life and has chosen to live with acceptance and love, rather than closing down with resentment. She has expanded into life, losing the ego drive and opening to the full energy of the unconscious. She is a surrendered instrument through which the god and goddess energy moves. She comes from love, rather than from ego power. The dark side of the crone is power, because she has intuitive powers that can give her control of other people if she wants to use them in that way. The other side of the crone is the love flowing through her that is an immense healing presence. She has a very finely developed masculinity. A highly developed discrimination, discernment, capacity to act. She is like a tuning fork in an environment. Because of who she is, her environment is different because she is there.”
(candles are extinguished)
Amen
References
Rites of Passage by Rev. Amy E. Long
Dreaming in the Dark by Starhawk
The Wisdom of Women by Carol LaRusso
Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Life Prayers by Gail Ricciuti
Weaving the Threads of Our Lives by Carol Bialock, RSCJ
Crone Wisdom Readings
These can be printed on individual papers, rolled up with a ribbon, and placed in a basket for the ritual
Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells: the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, and the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds in beach living: one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask, and one’s armor. Was that armor put on to protect one from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be!
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Midlife brings with it an invitation to accept ourselves as we truly are, embracing the darker sides of ourselves as well as the good, the dark sides of our cultures as well as the good. We have an instinctive fear of facing the dark mysteries. The shadow or unknown parts of us belong to an inner world that is usually suppressed in the first half of life…. But by confronting our mysterious and shadowy center, we tap into life’s revitalizing energies and gain access to our innermost self, which contains the key to a new understanding of our life’s meaning.
Paula Payne Hardin
Maturity involves the synthesis of all you’ve learned. It’s the time of the soul, the essence of all you are. As adolescence unleashed the mind, childhood the heart, and birth cycle the body, maturity brings out the soul. The keys to maturity are commitment and responsibility.
It’s time to stop studying, stop preparing, stop searching and to start teaching, doing, manifesting, producing. The rehearsals are over; the show is on.
Gabrielle Roth
During much of the feminist movement women redesigned themselves as men and disregarded their greatest gifts: open-mindedness, flexibility, intuition. Now they are riding themselves of stereotypes and cultural myths and tuning in to what it really means to be a woman- seeing menopause as a sacred rite of passage, for example. Women are taking their gifts seriously, to gently persuade, to gently be leaders.
Marilyn McGuire
How would it be different if the fertility of earth and women were celebrated as expressions of divinity and if women elders were appreciated as wise women? Just as menses is a connection between women and the moon and between women and Nature, and as women retained their blood in their body for nine months to make a baby, menopause would be considered even more awesome, for now it could be said that she retained the blood in her body to make wisdom.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
In that moment you are drunk on yourself,
You are withered, withered like autumn leaves.
That moment you leap free of yourself,
Winter to you appears in the dazzling robes of spring.
Rumi
Experience! Experience! Has brought me a comfort and a modesty and a devotion to inclusiveness that I would not give up for all the gold in all the mountains of the world.
Mary Oliver
Everything is laid out for you.
Your path is straight ahead of you.
Sometimes it’s invisible, but it’s there.
You may not know where it’s going,
But you have to follow the path.
It’s the path to the creator.
It’s the only path there is.
Chief Leon Shenandoah
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hand but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless others now.
Teresa of Avila
Each day I visit black Mary, who looks at me with her wise face, older than old and ugly in a beautiful way. It seems the crevices run deeper into her body each time I see her, that her wooden skin ages before my eyes. I never get tired of looking at her thick arm jutting out, her fist like a bulb about to explode. She is a muscle of love, this Mary.
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
You will be teachers for each other. You will come together in circles and speak your truth to each other. The time has come for women to accept their spiritual responsibility for our planet. “Will you help us?” I asked the assembled patriarchs. “We are your brothers,” they answered…. “We no longer know the way. Our ways do not work anymore. You women must find a new way.”
Patricia Hopkins, Sherry Rochester, The Feminine Face of God
There is a goodness, a wisdom that arises, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to save us if we let it, and it arises from within us, like the force that drives green shoots to break the winter ground, it will arise and drive us into a great blossoming like a pear tree, into flowering, into fragrance, fruit and song, into the wild wind dancing, sun shimmering, into the aliveness of it all, into that part of ourselves that can never be defiled, defeated, or destroyed, but that comes back to life, time and time again, that lives –always– that does not die. Into the Divine.
China Galland, The Bond Between Women
We long to know ourselves deeply, to know the place in which we can discover the Divine. We long to temper and hone our gifts, to put them into action in our world. When we allow ourselves to be whole, we allow new visions to emerge within us and within our cultures.
Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome… You will love again the stranger who was yourself… Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another… Take down the love letters from the bookshelf… peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life!
Derek Walcott
As we work in compassion to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us. No need to wait. As we care enough to take risks, we loosen the grip of ego and begin to come home to our true nature. The world itself, if we are bold enough to love it, acts through us. It does not ask uus to be pure or perfect, but only to care, to harness the sweet, pure intention of our deepest passions and to ‘fly’ like a bodhisattva!
Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self
Worship Materials: Interfaith by william Wallace
THEME The Complexities of Spirituality
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
Instead of concentrating on what we think is wrong with other world religions, our time could be spent more profitably on identifying what we have in common.
read moreTHOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
Instead of concentrating on what we think is wrong with other world religions, our time could be spent more profitably on identifying what we have in common.
THEME The Complexities of Spirituality
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
Instead of concentrating on what we think is wrong with other world religions, our time could be spent more profitably on identifying what we have in common.
Confidence that our beliefs are right and that those of other people are wrong, is a mark of arrogance, rather than of deep faith in divinity.
Information about other world religions can be a good starting point for dialogue, but eventually it has to come down to the discovery of our common humanity and the complexity of divinity.
It is better for world religions to concentrate on the questions which they should be addressing rather than the diverse answers which they currently provide. In any case the inhabitants
of the world are rightly less and less amenable to people trying to impose answers upon them.
All religions can affirm life. All religions can destroy life.
All one way ideologies be they religious, economic, political or within the area of the arts produce more division and antagonism than unity.
The only true one way is the divine mystery itself and that is so complex that it is incapable of being contained within any one human formation.
If we listened to the beating of the other person’s heart, we might gain a different perspective on what comes out of their mouth.
World religionists uniting for action is a much more liberating experience than world religionists attempting to agree on what to believe.
Perhaps a good starting point for dialogue between Christians,
Jews and Muslims would be a mutual examination of the way in which the image of the God of the sword, which is found in all of their scriptures has been used as a justification for warlike behavior.
Christians and Buddhists could profitably explore right thinking and empowerment and also ways in which we can hold together an imageless mystery and an imaged god.
Christians and Hindus could have a profitable dialogue around the many images of God and the process whereby we decide, upon which is appropriate for us.
Could Western world religionists learn from Asian world religionists some of whom say that if two people have opposing views it is possible for both, to be right. What would be required on our part for us to accept the possibility of belonging to two world religions?
For example, Buddhists who are also Shinto and some Christians in Japan who are also Buddhists e.g. some of the Itoen Community in Kyoto.
There is a world of difference between adding some of the insights of other world religions into our own faith and the totally unlikely possibility of all the world religions uniting into one super-religion.
An understanding of the difference between world religions can best be gained by studying their theologies.
An understanding of the similarities between world religions can best be gained by a study of their mystics.
To enter into dialogue with a person from another World religion with a hidden agenda of converting them, is at best devious and at worst downright immoral.
Until we see all religions as but partial expressions of divinity we will not be able to engage in meaningful dialogue.
Instead of concentrating on other people’s beliefs, we need to concentrate more on being aware of their experience.
The circle in the hand of the Buddha resembles the nail print in the hand of the Christ.
PRAYER
O God, in whom is all unity and all diversity,
help us to trust your mystery more than our formulations
and to be willing to enter your presence in the company of sisters and brothers of other faiths.
HYMNS
We are always part of the other. (BL)
You are the process God. (BL)
O God how can there be one world?
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
The right time has come.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Darkness is my mother.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Deep in our minds.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
God is beyond all words.
Singing the Sacred, Vol 1 2011 World Library Publications
REFRAIN
In creating space for each other. (BL)
GRACE
We eat and drink. (Multi-faith food blessing) (BL)
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
MOMENT OF AWARENESS
O eternal moment of awareness in you the whole creation
is one inter-woven garment, sensuous, seamless,
filled with peace and delight. But beyond that moment
life’s path skirts
between illusory dichotomies and visionless monotony,
between celebratory songs and liquid lamentations.
O God of orbiting imagination, of atomic minuteness
and universal immensity,
may the transitory moment become a way of life
until wonder’s pulsating womb becomes my permanent
abode.
IMPRESSIONS OF AN INTERFAITH MEETING IN BALI, 1994.
Enveloped by tourism’s cultural manipulations,
Softened by the brilliance of Hibiscus and Bougainvillea,
Sitting under the portraits of political authority
We from our elitist stand point
Sweltered in verbal profusion
And procedural irrelevances.
Yet for all this there were deeper realities ‑
The oneness beyond the plurality,
The oneness within plurality,
The oneness that delights in plurality
For there we saw many faces
Of God
Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto and Christian faces –
Pakistani, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Nepalese, Korean, Philipino,
Indonesian, Shri Lankan, Singaporean and New Zealand faces.
But behind all these faces
Lay images
Sometimes shrouded in mist
Sometimes exposed on centre stage
Images of
War and peace,
Attacker and nourisher,
Competitor and cooperator,
Colonizer and empowerer.
How then shall we be saved
From buried destruction?
Not by pretence,
Condemnation
Or denial,
Or even by religiously bathing
In sacred texts of time’s honored rituals,
But by observation from the space of awareness,
By letting go of ancient hurts
And by immersion in the mystery
Which is the eternal
NOW.
THE EXCLUSIVE MIND
The exclusive mind seems unable to see the many in the one, unable to see itself in the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the New Age person, the Communist, the Capitalist, the Asian, the European, the American, the Cuban, the Colonist and the Indigenous People. At the centre of much exclusiveness lies a mind and heart that, for one reason or another, only has a very limited idea of God. God as the one but not the many is an idea that can only thrive when one denies one’s own inner mystic, for the mystic sees within and beyond all manifestations to the mystery which is in all and through all.
The spiritual, as well as the genetic, reality is that we are all one family.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
If I feel uncomfortable with or threatened by dialogue with other world religions then perhaps I should be asking myself where these fears come from and whether they constitute a challenge to deepen my trust in the God who cannot be contained in any system of spirituality, and who in essence is the love that casts out all fear.
LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.
Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
Confronting the Powers: An Anti-Racism Workshop by Partner Org PCU
Friday-Saturday 9/18-19 join us for Anti-Racism Training
We will have the Revs. Sandhya Jha and David Bell leading a 1.5 day retreat on combatting racism in our world, our churches, and our lives. Jha and Bell are excellent facilitators; you don’t want to miss this! Cost is $10.
READ ON ...
View all upcoming events here!
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THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
Instead of concentrating on what we think is wrong with other world religions, our time could be spent more profitably on identifying what we have in common.
Confidence that our beliefs are right and that those of other people are wrong, is a mark of arrogance, rather than of deep faith in divinity.
Information about other world religions can be a good starting point for dialogue, but eventually it has to come down to the discovery of our common humanity and the complexity of divinity.
It is better for world religions to concentrate on the questions which they should be addressing rather than the diverse answers which they currently provide. In any case the inhabitants
of the world are rightly less and less amenable to people trying to impose answers upon them.
All religions can affirm life. All religions can destroy life.
All one way ideologies be they religious, economic, political or within the area of the arts produce more division and antagonism than unity.
The only true one way is the divine mystery itself and that is so complex that it is incapable of being contained within any one human formation.
If we listened to the beating of the other person’s heart, we might gain a different perspective on what comes out of their mouth.
World religionists uniting for action is a much more liberating experience than world religionists attempting to agree on what to believe.
Perhaps a good starting point for dialogue between Christians,
Jews and Muslims would be a mutual examination of the way in which the image of the God of the sword, which is found in all of their scriptures has been used as a justification for warlike behavior.
Christians and Buddhists could profitably explore right thinking and empowerment and also ways in which we can hold together an imageless mystery and an imaged god.
Christians and Hindus could have a profitable dialogue around the many images of God and the process whereby we decide, upon which is appropriate for us.
Could Western world religionists learn from Asian world religionists some of whom say that if two people have opposing views it is possible for both, to be right. What would be required on our part for us to accept the possibility of belonging to two world religions?
For example, Buddhists who are also Shinto and some Christians in Japan who are also Buddhists e.g. some of the Itoen Community in Kyoto.
There is a world of difference between adding some of the insights of other world religions into our own faith and the totally unlikely possibility of all the world religions uniting into one super-religion.
An understanding of the difference between world religions can best be gained by studying their theologies.
An understanding of the similarities between world religions can best be gained by a study of their mystics.
To enter into dialogue with a person from another World religion with a hidden agenda of converting them, is at best devious and at worst downright immoral.
Until we see all religions as but partial expressions of divinity we will not be able to engage in meaningful dialogue.
Instead of concentrating on other people’s beliefs, we need to concentrate more on being aware of their experience.
The circle in the hand of the Buddha resembles the nail print in the hand of the Christ.
PRAYER
O God, in whom is all unity and all diversity,
help us to trust your mystery more than our formulations
and to be willing to enter your presence in the company of sisters and brothers of other faiths.
HYMNS
We are always part of the other. (BL)
You are the process God. (BL)
O God how can there be one world?
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
The right time has come.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Darkness is my mother.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Deep in our minds.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
God is beyond all words.
Singing the Sacred, Vol 1 2011 World Library Publications
REFRAIN
In creating space for each other. (BL)
GRACE
We eat and drink. (Multi-faith food blessing) (BL)
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
MOMENT OF AWARENESS
O eternal moment of awareness in you the whole creation
is one inter-woven garment, sensuous, seamless,
filled with peace and delight. But beyond that moment
life’s path skirts
between illusory dichotomies and visionless monotony,
between celebratory songs and liquid lamentations.
O God of orbiting imagination, of atomic minuteness
and universal immensity,
may the transitory moment become a way of life
until wonder’s pulsating womb becomes my permanent
abode.
IMPRESSIONS OF AN INTERFAITH MEETING IN BALI, 1994.
Enveloped by tourism’s cultural manipulations,
Softened by the brilliance of Hibiscus and Bougainvillea,
Sitting under the portraits of political authority
We from our elitist stand point
Sweltered in verbal profusion
And procedural irrelevances.
Yet for all this there were deeper realities ‑
The oneness beyond the plurality,
The oneness within plurality,
The oneness that delights in plurality
For there we saw many faces
Of God
Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto and Christian faces –
Pakistani, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Nepalese, Korean, Philipino,
Indonesian, Shri Lankan, Singaporean and New Zealand faces.
But behind all these faces
Lay images
Sometimes shrouded in mist
Sometimes exposed on centre stage
Images of
War and peace,
Attacker and nourisher,
Competitor and cooperator,
Colonizer and empowerer.
How then shall we be saved
From buried destruction?
Not by pretence,
Condemnation
Or denial,
Or even by religiously bathing
In sacred texts of time’s honored rituals,
But by observation from the space of awareness,
By letting go of ancient hurts
And by immersion in the mystery
Which is the eternal
NOW.
THE EXCLUSIVE MIND
The exclusive mind seems unable to see the many in the one, unable to see itself in the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the New Age person, the Communist, the Capitalist, the Asian, the European, the American, the Cuban, the Colonist and the Indigenous People. At the centre of much exclusiveness lies a mind and heart that, for one reason or another, only has a very limited idea of God. God as the one but not the many is an idea that can only thrive when one denies one’s own inner mystic, for the mystic sees within and beyond all manifestations to the mystery which is in all and through all.
The spiritual, as well as the genetic, reality is that we are all one family.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
If I feel uncomfortable with or threatened by dialogue with other world religions then perhaps I should be asking myself where these fears come from and whether they constitute a challenge to deepen my trust in the God who cannot be contained in any system of spirituality, and who in essence is the love that casts out all fear.
LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.
Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
Small Group Prayer by Claralice Wolf
O God, our lives are like a journey, and this Small Group experience has been like a wayside inn where we have paused to be refreshed and reinvigorated for the next stage
.
.
O God, our lives are like a journey, and this Small Group experience has been like a wayside inn where we have paused to be refreshed and reinvigorated for the next stage.
Hear our prayers of thanks for the friendships we have made, the insights we have gained, the support we have received, the talents and gifts we have shared.
Hear also our prayers for the days ahead. Fill us with the energy of your love for facing the challenges we will meet.
Grant us the wisdom to make wise choices, especially when those choices have to do with loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly with You.
Surprise us with your joy in those times that we walk in sadness, or have days when everything goes wrong.
Deepen in us your peace when distress and the world’s turmoil hold sway over us.
Keep alive in us the courage of trusting You in those times when fear threatens, or when we struggle with the disciplines of spiritual growth.
Walk with each of us in our variety of needs, challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities.
May we sense your presence when we are alone, have time to think and dream, or have serious questions to answer.
And God, as we remember how Jesus of Nazareth walked among us, showing us the way, may we, too, find ourselves having a closer walk with You.
In Jesus’ name Amen
Events and Updates
Friday-Saturday 9/18-19 join us for Anti-Racism Training
We will have the Revs. Sandhya Jha and David Bell leading a 1.5 day retreat on combatting racism in our world, our churches, and our lives. Jha and Bell are excellent facilitators; you don’t want to miss this! Cost is $10.
READ ON ...
Confronting the Powers: An Anti-Racism Workshop by Partner Org PCU
Are you unsure what the difference is between racism and personal prejudice? How is racism a system beyond individual choices? Why does racism still grip the United States? And how can we participate as people of faith in its dismantling internally and socially?
If these questions interest you, you should consider attending PCU’s fall 1.5 day workshop, organized in collaboration with the Pro-Reconciliation/Anti-Racism Committee of the Disciples of Christ! You don’t have to have been trained before. All it requires is some time and an open heart and mind. Activists, laity, clergy, and allies are all welcome!
The training will be at Westminster Gardens in Duarte, CA. Costs will be minimal other than for food and hotel (if you live too far away to commute). More details and a registration page to come soon! Visit our Website Here.
Friday-Saturday 9/18-19, Anti-Racism Training
We will have the Revs. Sandhya Jha and David Bell leading a 1.5 day retreat on combatting racism in our world, our churches, and our lives. Jha and Bell are excellent facilitators; you don’t want to miss this! Cost is $10.
Friday, September 18
1 PM – 8 PM
Saturday, September 19
9 AM – 5 PM
Start:
September 18, 2015
End:September 19, 2015
Location:Westminster Gardens
1420 Santo Domingo Avenue
Duarte. California United States
Organization:Progressive Christians Uniting
Website:http://www.progressivechristiansuniting.org/PCU/Events.htmlEmail:admin@pcu-la.org
Telephone:213-625-0149
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ProgressiveChristianity.org
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