Do you know "The difference between being resuscitated and resurrected?" ... and more, last week at ProgresssiveChristianity.org”.
We delved into the topics of Resurrection, Ecology and Making a Difference.
Visit our website to join in on the discussion and to view our thousands of spiritual resources!
ProgressiveChristianity.org is a global portal for authors, scholars, theologians and liturgists to share their resources for the progressive spiritual journey. Each week we will send you a recap of some of our new resources and each month you will receive an e-newsletter - our eBulletin- which are always full of articles, reviews, liturgies, events, videos, books, news and more! We are glad you are a part of this community!
What is the difference between being resuscitated and resurrected? Lazarus was resuscitated in being brought back to the same life he had before dying. Eventually, he grew old and died again. Jesus, however, was resurrected. He was brought back to life, but not the same one as before. He was a new being, one who could hardly be recognized by his disciples at first. The new life in which he was resurrected into was one in which knows no more death. Jesus would not die again after having been resurrected into the fullness of Christ.
A seed turns into a plant or a flower, a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, and a tadpole turns into a frog. Each becomes a new thing, metamorphosed into a life changed radically. They are not resuscitated into what they once were, but become new creations of resurrection — made more beautiful from their transformation.
If you look into a chrysalis, what you discover is an empty tomb. The caterpillar is gone; not resuscitated, but resurrected. Now lives a butterfly. Caterpillars crawl and climb, but butterflies float and fly. The caterpillar seeks and struggles all its life to become something more beautiful. The butterfly already knows what it means to be beautiful, and therefore seeks not to help itself but rather to share its beauty, grace, and goodness with others. The desire of the caterpillar is to improve itself; that of the butterfly is to bless others. Whatever good the caterpillar does for others, it is done as part of an obligation or precondition to achieve its real self-interested goal. But the butterfly is not centered in self-interest. It lives to bless, not be blessed. It is the difference between caring for others out of principle and caring for them out of character…between loving them out of duty, and loving them out of the joy of doing so.
Being resuscitated brings us back to a life of the old fears, anxieties, and spiritual failings of the past. Being resurrected takes us to a new life in which we have no fear and no anxiety, and in which we are made complete and whole by love alone. To be resurrected into a life of perfect love is to know the peace that Christ gives to us…a peace not of this world, but of a world in which love -unconditional love- is the only thing that truly matters. God grant you the grace to be resurrected rather than resuscitated. May your life be an Easter miracle!
The earth may be our mother but we can be her midwife or her funeral director.
Nature is a web of interdependency not a series of separate hierarchical layers.
An anthropocentric view of life i.e. viewing human beings as separate from and over and above the rest of nature lies behind much of the ecological destruction that human beings have and are creating in this world.
When we seek to capture the earth, its creatures or other human beings we take ourselves hostage.
When we purchase a piece of land, we do not just buy a quantity of soil, we are gifted an ecosystem. Treat that system with reverence.
A first step to rehabilitating our attitude to the earth would be to stop calling the earth “dirt” and thinking of it in terms of making us “dirty”.
What we do to the earth we do to our spirits. For our spirits are the spirit of the earth.
When the earth bleeds human beings die. So watch the rivers for the brown blood of Earth’s soil.
The current rape of the earth springs from a diseased spirituality.
The primary transaction is not between capital and labor but between human beings and nature.
The balance sheet of the earth is even more important for our survival as human beings than the balance sheet of national or global economies.
As the branches are linked to the vine, so we are bound together with all other living creatures in the love of God.
To be at one with God is to be at one with the life-force of all that we call ‘living’ and of all that we call ‘non living’, since these are but two different expressions of the same life force, alternative forms of the same cosmic rhythm.
When the trees of the woods shout for joy, do we hear their song, the song of creation (Psalm 96:12) or are we too busy calculating their economic value?
Could the hills be the arms of the valleys raised in praise, the mists of the valleys be the tears of the earth?
Our relationship with the earth should be organic and symbiotic rather than mechanical, hierarchical and parasitic.
In order to save the earth we need cosmic sensitivity rather than ideological purity.
When the halo of the person and the halo of the Cosmos merge then the radiance of the circle is restored
Only those with sick minds would resort to killing their mother yet we are systematically killing Mother Earth.
Earth’s mothering is the source of life for both our body and our spirit.
Individualistic Capitalism as much as State Capitalism (Communism) is a one way trip to ecological hell.
One of our false gods is a mobile one with four wheels and a gasoline tank.
The wreath that surrounded the dead city was a rubber tyre and the incense stick a smoking exhaust!
Life sings in the silence,
Life grows from the dark,
Life stirs in the stillness.
Nature is becoming like a looted tomb. The shell remains but the body has gone.
In exploiting the Earth we are endangering our children’s future for we are the future eaters and the great destroyers.
The earth will be saved when accountancy becomes accountability.
When we rape the earth we consign the children of the people of the land to oppression.
Greening is not just an issue, it is a way of thinking and a way of life.
The land is both our mother and our lover.
Like the trees the human spirit that aspires to heaven must first be rooted in the earth.
PRAYERS
O God who has placed us within the interwoven fabric of nature, help us to appreciate the beauty of your handiwork. Enable us to discern your artist’s hand and heart within the mountains and valleys, the rivers and the plains, the sea, the sky and vast array of plant and animal life which Earth sustains.
O Divine Artist and Pain-bearer, open our hearts both to the destruction which we have inflicted upon nature and also to the pain which we have heaped upon your heart as its creator. Help us to weep with the fallen trees, mourn for exterminated species, be revolted by the rape of Earth itself and in so doing commit ourselves to the cause of promoting sustainable use of the world’s resources and the preservation of habitat for all earth’s plants and creatures.
O God, source of all true humility, help us to abandon the notion that human beings are independent of the rest of nature and that nature alone exists for our benefit. Give us the courage to acknowledge that we are but part of a complex web in which our professed superiority over other creatures should lead us to become the advocates and helpmates of the less powerful members of Earth’s Community.
HYMNS
We are one with the creatures. (BL)
When skin becomes the surface of the earth. (BL)
From the womb of Mother Earth(BL)
The world within. (BL)
Who claims to own this piece of land. (BL)
All life’s many cycles. (BL)
Charge our hearts with wonder. (BL)
We give thanks for the plants. (An ecological grace.) (BL)
We are children of the Cosmos. (BL)
The cosmos in all its wonder. (BL)
When I am the earth. (BL)
Come let us think. (BL)
In nature as in Jesus. (BL)
This world is full of death and resurrection.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Gift of the solar fire.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Throughout this land.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
One justice for land and people.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Sing of a sacred circle.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
All things of earth. (SE/MU)
We come from the Cosmos. (SE/MU)
Come join the cosmic family. (STS1)
Every plant reveals the cycles. (STS1)
Let the whole of the cosmos. (Benedicite)(STS2)
Spirit felt in raging waters. (STS2)
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011, Vol 2 2014 World Library Publications
SONG
I will walk the Circle of the Earth. (BL)
SONG FOR TEENS
All things are connected. (SYSJ)
RESPONSES & CHANTS.
May the fire in us. (BL)
Life for the creatures. (BL)
Thank you God. (BL)
We are one with the creatures. (BL)
POEMS
GREENING
One tree is not a forest
but one tree can make a forest
therefore take time
give yourself space
that your spirit may green
and flourish.
EARTH, AIR, FIRE AND WATER
The sound of the spirit is the wind,
the warmth of the spirit is the fire,
the healing of the spirit is the water,
the womb of the spirit is the earth
MAYBE
Maybe
when
the last river is dammed,
the last wilderness exploited,
the last forest tree felled,
the last swamp drained,
we will discover that the god
of individualism,
competition and
free enterprise is a Baal
but then
it will be
too late.
REGENERATION
Like fires
that cremated
irreplaceable
flora and fauna,
rage and guilt
burnt my heart
but cannot
rewrite history
until earth becomes our placenta
and this raped soil our tabernacle;
for liberation grows from the land,
nurturing from the womb of nature
and without beauty or feeling
justice and wisdom
are consumed
by those incinerating gods
Profit, Power and Paternalism.
I THINK I MAY HAVE KILLED
I think I may have killed that gecko in evicting if from “my” space. But who said that space was “my” space and not the gecko’s space? Is not all space “our” space for mutual sharing? Maybe “yes” maybe “no”. Certainly I do not want to share my intestinal space with some over zealous virus seeking to evangelize my innards and so distort my natural balance into some “one way” disequilibrium.
RUBBISH
Nature has no rubbish;
the so called ‘litter’
of fallen leaves
is the seedbed
of the forest’s
new life
THE CREATION COVENANT
Voice 1. The universe in its awesomeness, reflects the loving, dreaming and shaping of the Divine Artist, who looks upon what has been created, sees how good it is and celebrates its life.
Voice 2. Scripture affirms the value of human beings, within nature’s intertwining tapestry, for we who are formed from the cosmic dust, have the breath of God within us.
Voice 3. Each of us is Adam and Eve, responsible for nurturing the life and resources of this greening planet.
Voice 4. Each one of us like Noah and his wife, is entrusted with the survival of the species.
Voice 5. Each of us is called by God to nurture and protect this land’s sacred soil, water, vegetation and wildlife for generations yet unborn.
All: WE COMMIT OURSELVES TO JOIN WITH YOU, O GOD
TO NURTURE THE PLANTS AND THE ANIMALS,
THE ELEMENTS,
THE SACRED WOMB OF SEA AND SOIL.
WE OFFER TO YOU,
OUR ABILITY TO CREATE AND
OUR POTENTIAL TO RELEASE
PEOPLE’S LOVING ENERGIES
FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL CREATION.
WE SING WITH YOU THE SONG OF THE UNIVERSE!
WE DANCE WITH YOU THE DANCE OF LIFE!
WE ARE YOURS,
AND YOU IN US ARE HOPE
FOR THE RENEWING OF NATURE
THROUGH THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS.
MAY THIS LAND OF OURS BE BREAD AND WINE FOR US ALL.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
What view of nature does our worship reflect?
Is nature something which we only refer to on Special Sundays such as Harvest Festival, or is it the framework within which all liturgy, all worship occurs? In other words is our worship anthropocentric or Eco-centric?
What is the particular environment I live in saying to me about Gospel values and the Christian Way?
What are the appropriate images we should use if we are to return to the parabolic manner of teaching of Jesus: That is to say, how can the plant and animal life in our own area be used symbolically to illustrate the truth of the Gospel in the way that Jesus used the fig tree, the yeast and the mustard seed?
Could we ask ourself what is the color of the soil of our spirit?
Is it the same as the color of the soil of the land of our birth?
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.
We asked several authors, pastors, theologians, and scholars questions about their beliefs, progressive Christianity, church, Jesus, social activism, spirituality, etc. We received this awesome answer from Rev. Gretta Vosper.
Rev. Gretta Vosper, of The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity weighs in on our question: Can Progressive Christianity make a positive difference in the world?
**~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~~~**
Visit: www.grettavosper.ca
Gretta Vosper trained for ministry at Queen’s Theological College where the foundations for her post-theistic work were laid. There, she learned that the Bible was a human construction. For the past thirteen years, she has applied the extrapolation of that truth to her work within and beyond the church. In 2013, she came out to her congregation as an atheist; few were surprised. For the most part, her denomination – considered to be one of the most progressive in the world – tolerates her as she continues to irritate it toward publicly stating what so many who lead within it believe: god is a metaphor for goodness and love lived out with compassion and justice, no more and no less.
She has been speaking publicly on the forefront of this work since launching the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity in 2004. Her first book, With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe, became a national bestseller within days of its publication in 2008. In 2009, she was named one of the most compelling women in Canada by More Magazine and With or Without God was placed on Amazon’s Top 25 Books to Cause a Commotion alongside To Kill a Mockingbird, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation.
She has spoken across Canada, in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States presenting keynotes and workshops at conferences and leading congregational events and Sunday services. She has appeared on programs on the Canadian, Australian, and British Broadcasting Corporations’ radio networks and talk and magazine shows across Canada. For six years, she was a weekly panelist on the Culture Wars segment of the John Oakley Show on AM640, Toronto’s most listened to Talk Radio program. She has participated in online lecture series, the most notable hosted by Michael Dowd and including thirty-seven spiritual leaders from across North America and been interviewed by numerous online media channels. Her work is regularly addressed in the national magazine of her denomination, The Observer, and fuels controversial conversations on Facebook. Twice, she has narrowly avoided heresy trials, once by a margin of three votes.
Her second book, Amen: What Prayer Can Be in a World Beyond Belief applies the reality of a godless world to a spiritual practice that holds incredible meaning for so many. Current scientific discoveries regarding the effects of prayer on the brain bring surprising elements to the fore and we recognize that belief is not as important in our spiritual nurture as we have thought it once was. Amen has become an important book in congregational study groups.
Week of: April 5th -11th, 2015
Resurrection
Whenever we have faced a fear, a challenge, a death of some sort, and walked through the metaphorical fire to emerge re-born on the other side, we have experienced a resurrection.Resurrection opportunities abound. Whenever we have faced a fear, a challenge, a death of some sort, and walked through the metaphorical fire to emerge re-born on the other side, we have experienced a resurrection. It is a transformation, and we are never quite the same person again.
God’s Resurrection Way by George Stuart
I look about, and when I do, I see the wond’rous sight
Of the cycles of the cosmos, changing darkness into light;
When I ponder on this miracle, I’m swamped with great delight;
God’s resurrection way!
Smiled upon by resurrection,
We are blest by resurrection;
We observe that resurrection
Is God’s renewing way.
We know from nature’s methods and from everything of worth,
From the seasons and the life-force that replenishes the earth,
That it’s from a death and dying comes the process of re-birth;
God’s resurrection way!
Nature clothed in resurrection;
Death to life is resurrection;
Life is lived through resurrection;
It’s God’s renewing way.
In the stories of the Christ, the empty tomb is still a sign
Pointing to the living presence as it is with bread and wine;
In his life and death and then beyond, he does, for us, define
God’s resurrection way!
Let us practise resurrection;
We can live by resurrection;
When we practise resurrection
Christ lives again today.
Every time our friends and neighbors try to conquer rising pain,
After glimpsing death and grieving or locked up in fear’s domain,
We are bound to them and Jesus, as we struggle, we regain,
God’s resurrection way.
We are offered resurrection;
We can practice resurrection;
We can live by resurrection
Tomorrow and today.
Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic
George Stuart has several self-published volumes of new lyrics to well-known hymn tunes. Check out his website at sites.google.com/site/george007site or email him atgeorge.stuart@exemail.com.au
Worship Materials: Ascension
From the Festive Worship collection by William L. (Bill) Wallace
THEME New Awareness – The Unity of the Familiar and the Unknown
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
In the beyond lies the everywhere, in the within dwells our heaven.
The only heaven God lives in is the heaven that is everywhere; for God is not limited to any time or space, but is present in all equally.
We become aware of God at particular times and in particular spaces, but when we seek to limit God to that time or space we become idolatrous, whether it is an event in history, a current experience, a holy book, a religious ceremony, a form of organization or a set of beliefs.
God in us is glory, is heaven; for when we focus on the Christ within, we become aware that we are one with all things and that this unity is heaven, this unity is bliss.
If we only seek light we will only experience the surface; for God dwells in the darkness of the mystery and the cloud of unknowing.
The challenge is to grow beyond preoccupation with moralistic legalism to the point of discernment of divinity.
It is in ceasing to cling to a particular manifestation of divinity that we can become aware of divinity everywhere.
Each time an image of God dies there is the potential for an expanded vision of divinity.
PRAYER
O Jesus Christ, who rose above the limitations of our everyday living to be present everywhere at all times, help us to discern you not only in the historic Jesus but in all bread and all wine, in all flesh and all blood, so that our whole life may become one great prayer of thanksgiving.
HYMNS
The darkness and the light. (BL)
You are the process, God. (BL)
There shall be life and love. (BL NZ METH)
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Rise O my heart, unfold your wings and fly.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
You do not need to come O God.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Come let us dwell in that place of great wonder.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Deep within me.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Buried in my being.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
In the first stage of seeking. (stages of spiritual growth)
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Have you not thought. SE/MU)
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
GOLDEN INCANDESCENCE
Beyond the temples of correctness
my spirit journeys
to imagination’s unfenced fields
where boundaries dance the circle
and horizon is now.
At the point
of the marriage
of childhood’s fire and water
and the merging of
the motionless sea’s
unending rhythm
beginning becomes an ending
and interwovenness
new birth.
Yin
is as yang,
reason nurtures the dreams
and intuition unbars
syllogistic bondage as
Artist, Sage and Clown
intermingle
in the
abandoning dance
and my ‘I am’
becomes part
of the shadows
at the molten heart
of the flame.
TWO WORLDS OR ONE?
It used to be commonplace to speak of two worlds – a physical world and a spiritual world, a natural and a supernatural world. In fact there is only one world but two states of awareness. We can choose to limit our perception to viewing life as “a weary soiled earth” or perhaps to see it only in terms of the market place. Alternatively, we can acknowledge that we are surrounded by heaven and that the divine is everywhere and in all things – even in some aspects of the market place!
DEPARTURE AND RETURN
(A Recurrent Element of Pilgrimage)
Leaving behind a dependency on a literal interpretation of the Bible and
Returning to the amazing power of the symbolic,
Leaving behind a dependency upon an intervening God and
Returning to the liberation of empowerment,
Leaving behind dependency upon another person or organization to make us wise and
Returning to the wisdom that is within us and all human beings,
Leaving behind legalistic morality and
Returning to the complexity of human relationships which only love can understand,
Leaving behind an exclusively male God and
Returning to the life fulfilling inclusiveness of a God who is both female and male,
Leaving behind a God who is localized and
Returning to a God who is everywhere,
Leaving behind the puzzle and
Returning to the mystery.
O departing and returning God,
I place my trust in you
For you are my wondrous,
itinerant,
home.
AWARENESS
Let the inner and the outer worlds be as one,
Let all the opposites dance together,
Let the mind reflect nature’s interweaving,
Let the heart know divinity within,
Let the logicians experience rapture
and the ecstatics value discipline,
Let the rich find liberation from possessions
and the poor liberation from oppression,
Let the child respect the adult
and the adult the inner child,
Let the image reflect the imageless mystery
and the mystery be perceived in all things,
Let joy be the way
and love its celebration.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
If we cease to cling firmly to a particular manifestation of divinity, a particular means of grace, then our faith in the mystery will grow. We will then be able to return to these particular manifestations with a sense of lightness, humor and delight instead of a life-denying intensity.
Could my spirituality become much more of a dance of sacred lightness?
Text and image © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
To Seek, To Question, To Find by Randall Wehler
The longing to know our Creator seems to be an innate human trait
A God-presence yearned for, to be revealed — never in life too late
A created human consciousness seeking a link to the “mind” of God
That Ultimate Spirit permeating universal dimensions, each step trod
God’s spirit, an endless presence, can be seen mortally in countless ways
In cosmic terms, infinite revelations are beyond our limited Earthly days
It was the Nazarene, Jesus, who taught ways to make sense of the divine
Perhaps “heaven” as a metaphor for an endless loving eternity, so sublime
A growing cosmos that mirrors the expansion of our human consciousness
An ineffable shared human feeling — no words can describe it, more or less
On our paths to knowing the divine, it’s alright to ponder and ask questions
That’s part of the journey to understand God including biblical suggestions
Oftentimes the journey toward “finding” is as important as the destination
Let not humans be given to a guilt-ridden, believer-based consternation
Events and Updates
Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization
“Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization” Focusing on the big ideas that matter for a thriving ecosphere, featuring some seven hundred presenters and more than eighty areas of specialty.Early Bird Registration Ends April 30th.
Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization
Leading and original thinkers from more than twenty countries are coming together for the largest transdisciplinary conference ever held on behalf of the planet.
“Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization” focuses on the big ideas that matter for a thriving ecosphere, featuring some seven hundred presenters and more than eighty areas of specialty.
8:00am–6:30pm
Registration: Bridges Auditorium Lobby
Pre-Conference Activities: (Tours, etc.)
7:00pm–9:00pm
Public Plenary: Bill McKibben–“Climate Warming as a Civilizational Crisis”
9:15pm–10:00pm
Reception
Images
Start: June 4, 2015
End: June 7, 2015
Location: Pomona College
Inaugural Pando Populus Conference
Claremont CA
Contact: Center for Process Studies
Website: http://www.ctr4process.org/whitehead2015/location/
Telephone: 909-621-5330
View all upcoming events here!
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Resurrection
Whenever we have faced a fear, a challenge, a death of some sort, and walked through the metaphorical fire to emerge re-born on the other side, we have experienced a resurrection.Resurrection opportunities abound. Whenever we have faced a fear, a challenge, a death of some sort, and walked through the metaphorical fire to emerge re-born on the other side, we have experienced a resurrection. It is a transformation, and we are never quite the same person again.
I look about, and when I do, I see the wond’rous sight
Of the cycles of the cosmos, changing darkness into light;
When I ponder on this miracle, I’m swamped with great delight;
God’s resurrection way!
Smiled upon by resurrection,
We are blest by resurrection;
We observe that resurrection
Is God’s renewing way.
We know from nature’s methods and from everything of worth,
From the seasons and the life-force that replenishes the earth,
That it’s from a death and dying comes the process of re-birth;
God’s resurrection way!
Nature clothed in resurrection;
Death to life is resurrection;
Life is lived through resurrection;
It’s God’s renewing way.
In the stories of the Christ, the empty tomb is still a sign
Pointing to the living presence as it is with bread and wine;
In his life and death and then beyond, he does, for us, define
God’s resurrection way!
Let us practise resurrection;
We can live by resurrection;
When we practise resurrection
Christ lives again today.
Every time our friends and neighbors try to conquer rising pain,
After glimpsing death and grieving or locked up in fear’s domain,
We are bound to them and Jesus, as we struggle, we regain,
God’s resurrection way.
We are offered resurrection;
We can practice resurrection;
We can live by resurrection
Tomorrow and today.
Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic
George Stuart has several self-published volumes of new lyrics to well-known hymn tunes. Check out his website at sites.google.com/site/george007site or email him atgeorge.stuart@exemail.com.au
From the Festive Worship collection by William L. (Bill) Wallace
THEME New Awareness – The Unity of the Familiar and the Unknown
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
In the beyond lies the everywhere, in the within dwells our heaven.
The only heaven God lives in is the heaven that is everywhere; for God is not limited to any time or space, but is present in all equally.
We become aware of God at particular times and in particular spaces, but when we seek to limit God to that time or space we become idolatrous, whether it is an event in history, a current experience, a holy book, a religious ceremony, a form of organization or a set of beliefs.
God in us is glory, is heaven; for when we focus on the Christ within, we become aware that we are one with all things and that this unity is heaven, this unity is bliss.
If we only seek light we will only experience the surface; for God dwells in the darkness of the mystery and the cloud of unknowing.
The challenge is to grow beyond preoccupation with moralistic legalism to the point of discernment of divinity.
It is in ceasing to cling to a particular manifestation of divinity that we can become aware of divinity everywhere.
Each time an image of God dies there is the potential for an expanded vision of divinity.
PRAYER
O Jesus Christ, who rose above the limitations of our everyday living to be present everywhere at all times, help us to discern you not only in the historic Jesus but in all bread and all wine, in all flesh and all blood, so that our whole life may become one great prayer of thanksgiving.
HYMNS
The darkness and the light. (BL)
You are the process, God. (BL)
There shall be life and love. (BL NZ METH)
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Rise O my heart, unfold your wings and fly.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
You do not need to come O God.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Come let us dwell in that place of great wonder.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Deep within me.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Buried in my being.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
In the first stage of seeking. (stages of spiritual growth)
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Have you not thought. SE/MU)
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
GOLDEN INCANDESCENCE
Beyond the temples of correctness
my spirit journeys
to imagination’s unfenced fields
where boundaries dance the circle
and horizon is now.
At the point
of the marriage
of childhood’s fire and water
and the merging of
the motionless sea’s
unending rhythm
beginning becomes an ending
and interwovenness
new birth.
Yin
is as yang,
reason nurtures the dreams
and intuition unbars
syllogistic bondage as
Artist, Sage and Clown
intermingle
in the
abandoning dance
and my ‘I am’
becomes part
of the shadows
at the molten heart
of the flame.
TWO WORLDS OR ONE?
It used to be commonplace to speak of two worlds – a physical world and a spiritual world, a natural and a supernatural world. In fact there is only one world but two states of awareness. We can choose to limit our perception to viewing life as “a weary soiled earth” or perhaps to see it only in terms of the market place. Alternatively, we can acknowledge that we are surrounded by heaven and that the divine is everywhere and in all things – even in some aspects of the market place!
DEPARTURE AND RETURN
(A Recurrent Element of Pilgrimage)
Leaving behind a dependency on a literal interpretation of the Bible and
Returning to the amazing power of the symbolic,
Leaving behind a dependency upon an intervening God and
Returning to the liberation of empowerment,
Leaving behind dependency upon another person or organization to make us wise and
Returning to the wisdom that is within us and all human beings,
Leaving behind legalistic morality and
Returning to the complexity of human relationships which only love can understand,
Leaving behind an exclusively male God and
Returning to the life fulfilling inclusiveness of a God who is both female and male,
Leaving behind a God who is localized and
Returning to a God who is everywhere,
Leaving behind the puzzle and
Returning to the mystery.
O departing and returning God,
I place my trust in you
For you are my wondrous,
itinerant,
home.
AWARENESS
Let the inner and the outer worlds be as one,
Let all the opposites dance together,
Let the mind reflect nature’s interweaving,
Let the heart know divinity within,
Let the logicians experience rapture
and the ecstatics value discipline,
Let the rich find liberation from possessions
and the poor liberation from oppression,
Let the child respect the adult
and the adult the inner child,
Let the image reflect the imageless mystery
and the mystery be perceived in all things,
Let joy be the way
and love its celebration.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
If we cease to cling firmly to a particular manifestation of divinity, a particular means of grace, then our faith in the mystery will grow. We will then be able to return to these particular manifestations with a sense of lightness, humor and delight instead of a life-denying intensity.
Could my spirituality become much more of a dance of sacred lightness?
Text and image © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
The longing to know our Creator seems to be an innate human trait
A God-presence yearned for, to be revealed — never in life too late
A created human consciousness seeking a link to the “mind” of God
That Ultimate Spirit permeating universal dimensions, each step trod
God’s spirit, an endless presence, can be seen mortally in countless ways
In cosmic terms, infinite revelations are beyond our limited Earthly days
It was the Nazarene, Jesus, who taught ways to make sense of the divine
Perhaps “heaven” as a metaphor for an endless loving eternity, so sublime
A growing cosmos that mirrors the expansion of our human consciousness
An ineffable shared human feeling — no words can describe it, more or less
On our paths to knowing the divine, it’s alright to ponder and ask questions
That’s part of the journey to understand God including biblical suggestions
Oftentimes the journey toward “finding” is as important as the destination
Let not humans be given to a guilt-ridden, believer-based consternation
Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization
“Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization” Focusing on the big ideas that matter for a thriving ecosphere, featuring some seven hundred presenters and more than eighty areas of specialty.Early Bird Registration Ends April 30th.
Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization
Leading and original thinkers from more than twenty countries are coming together for the largest transdisciplinary conference ever held on behalf of the planet.
“Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization” focuses on the big ideas that matter for a thriving ecosphere, featuring some seven hundred presenters and more than eighty areas of specialty.
8:00am–6:30pm
Registration: Bridges Auditorium Lobby
Pre-Conference Activities: (Tours, etc.)
7:00pm–9:00pm
Public Plenary: Bill McKibben–“Climate Warming as a Civilizational Crisis”
9:15pm–10:00pm
Reception
Images
Start: June 4, 2015
End: June 7, 2015
Location: Pomona College
Inaugural Pando Populus Conference
Claremont CA
Contact: Center for Process Studies
Website: http://www.ctr4process.org/whitehead2015/location/
Telephone: 909-621-5330
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