Weekly Recap for Tuesday, September 8, 2015 from ProgressiveChristianity.org in Gig Harbour, Washington, United StatesDoes it take dead bodies of children washing up on the shore to get Americans to notice a crisis. How can you help Syrian Refugees?
Last Week At ProgressiveChristianity.org...
We delved into the topics of Tom Thresher, Syria, Katrina and 3 am Prayers.
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!
Remembering Tom Thresher
Fred Plumer
Tom was an exceptional teacher. He was often ahead of his time but still touched a lot of people.
READ ON ...
How Americans Can Help Syrian Refugees
Tom was an exceptional teacher. He was often ahead of his time but still touched a lot of people.
READ ON ...
Today was a sad day. My wife and I just returned from the memorial service of Tom Thresher. If you are surprised you should be. One moment he was a vital 66 year old man and four weeks later he died from acute pancreatic cancer. He never saw it coming until the last couple of weeks. In fact we were supposed to have lunch on the day he died. I left a call on his cell phone checking to see if we were still on just before opening my an email and finding a notice announcing he sudden death earlier that morning. The last I had heard, he was going to try some experimental chemo and he expected months if not longer.
Apparently one try of the chemo and he called his wife and adult kids together and said he was done. He checked into hospice the next day and passed away two days later with his entire family surrounding him. It was by all standards a perfect death. This does not take away from my sense of loss however.
Tom was an exceptional teacher. He was often ahead of his time but still touched a lot of people. With a BA in Economics from UCLA, a PhD in Education from Stanford, and later a D.Min degree from my alma mater, Pacific School of Religion, it is hard to categorize Tom’s life. He traveled in the seventies, had a brief business career in the eighties and in the nineties became a craftsman. He created some amazing clocks out of wood and stone and extraordinary kaleidoscopes that were displayed all over the country. But clearly he was most happy when he was helping others with personal transformation. He was deeply into Integral Theory and was friends with people like Ken Wilbur and Steve McIntosh. But even that was not enough for Tom.
Tom started his ministry in a small church in Northern California and in 2003 was called to the Suquamish United Church of Christ. Four years later when I heard about the progressive pastor, I contacted him. We made plans to get together and the rest is history. Tom and I spent many lunches over the nine year period talking first about how to save the church. That evolved into the question, “what are we trying to save it for?” Then we moved to “how do we gather people together who want to transform without all of the structures and challenges that face the churches today?”
The net result of those conversations ended in his second book, Crazy Wisdom for which I agreed to write the forward. In many ways it is a summation of where Tom was in his life and the way he saw the future. Few of us are that lucky.
Tom’s life was celebrated at the Suquamish Tribe’s beautiful facility, House of Awakened Culture. Tom had worked with the tribe on several occasions and the tribal leaders made the gorgeous facilities with giant doors that opened to the South Sound available to Tom’s family for the service. They even provided a Salmon meal including homemade cookies for the guests. It was an eclectic gathering of people that truly reflected Tom’s life. Even the disorganization seemed to fit his personality – at least as I knew him.
Most of all, Tom knew how to be a good friend. It will take me a long time, I am certain, before I stop picking up the phone to call my friend and say “How about lunch?”
How Americans Can Help Syrian Refugees
Eric Alexander
Americans by and large are an amazing people who are always willing to help people half way around the world when there’s trouble, and many Americans are wondering what can be done at this very moment for Syrian refugees.
READ ON ...
Americans by and large are an amazing people who are always willing to help people half way around the world when there’s trouble, and many Americans are wondering what can be done at this very moment for Syrian refugees. Many of us feel hurt to our core to imagine having to leave our homes and life’s work behind, face starvation and depravity, and squeeze onto a rickety old boat with our spouse and precious children and flee into terrifying conditions like this:
While some seek to politicize and polarize the issue, I see no place for that right now. The fact is that the crisis in Syria has been going on for some time. The current war has been raging for five years, and the situation that led to it was a tinderbox in the making since the Shia based Assad regime came into power in the 1970’s. Treatment of the Sunni population as 2nd class citizens through their staunch dictatorship finally came to a head. The current dictator, Bashar al-Assad took power in 2000, and things got really bad in 2011 when the Arab Spring protests began in resistance to oppression, inequality, and brutality. And things are getting progressively worse as ISIS infiltrate the resistance in an effort for a land grab, and Syrian citizens have to make the heart-wrenching choice to flee or die:
Since the start of the current conflict, over 12 Million people have been displaced from their homes. 4 Million have had to leave Syria all together, and roughly 250,000 have been killed and 1 Million wounded. This is a crisis of epic magnitude! And we know that we are called to do something – anything:
The good news is that amazing and reputable organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, UMCOR, UNICEF, Mercy Corps, The UN Refugee Agency, ICRC (Red Cross), and World Vision have been there in the region from the beginning tirelessly providing aid and support. Let’s face it, most of us have no idea how we could help out in person from the other side of the planet, but thankfully there are organizations that we can support who are there in person and making an impact. Most of the organizations linked above offer ways to donate directly to Syrian refugee programs, and most of the links provided above will go straight to those pages for Syrian refugees by simply clicking on the names – or with a little bit of work in cases such as Doctors Without Borders a special number and email is provided on the donate page to earmark a gift specifically for the Syrian crisis. I have personally vetted that all of the organizations provided are directly helping refugees of the Syrian conflict. And if you’re the type to sign a White House petition, have a look here at a proposal to welcome and resettle 65,000 Syrian refugees in the United States.
I believe that our great calling as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, or however we identify, is to live charitably. That is our most commonly binding ethos as conscious human beings. And with that in mind, I conclude by sharing a tweet from Pope Francis for reflection about what that might look like for all of us:
Americans by and large are an amazing people who are always willing to help people half way around the world when there’s trouble, and many Americans are wondering what can be done at this very moment for Syrian refugees.
READ ON ...
Americans by and large are an amazing people who are always willing to help people half way around the world when there’s trouble, and many Americans are wondering what can be done at this very moment for Syrian refugees. Many of us feel hurt to our core to imagine having to leave our homes and life’s work behind, face starvation and depravity, and squeeze onto a rickety old boat with our spouse and precious children and flee into terrifying conditions like this:
While some seek to politicize and polarize the issue, I see no place for that right now. The fact is that the crisis in Syria has been going on for some time. The current war has been raging for five years, and the situation that led to it was a tinderbox in the making since the Shia based Assad regime came into power in the 1970’s. Treatment of the Sunni population as 2nd class citizens through their staunch dictatorship finally came to a head. The current dictator, Bashar al-Assad took power in 2000, and things got really bad in 2011 when the Arab Spring protests began in resistance to oppression, inequality, and brutality. And things are getting progressively worse as ISIS infiltrate the resistance in an effort for a land grab, and Syrian citizens have to make the heart-wrenching choice to flee or die:
Since the start of the current conflict, over 12 Million people have been displaced from their homes. 4 Million have had to leave Syria all together, and roughly 250,000 have been killed and 1 Million wounded. This is a crisis of epic magnitude! And we know that we are called to do something – anything:
I believe that our great calling as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, or however we identify, is to live charitably. That is our most commonly binding ethos as conscious human beings. And with that in mind, I conclude by sharing a tweet from Pope Francis for reflection about what that might look like for all of us:
If you have thoughts or additional ways to help, please share in the comments below or in the comments from whichever social media platform you found this shared on. And thanks for caring!
Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and the founder of ChristianEvolution.com >>Follow Eric on Facebook<<
Not Recovered: Hurricane Katrina’s Struggling Black Gay CommunityIrene Monroe
It has been over a decade now since Hurricane Katrina ...Today, much of the Big Easy has gotten its groove back. But the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward — predominately African American—has not.
READ ON ...
It has been over a decade now since Hurricane Katrina barreled through New Orleans (NO). Today, much of the Big Easy has gotten its groove back. But the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, the largest of seventeen wards of New Orleans—and predominately African American—has not. The demographic group that unfortunately has been, and continues to be, invisible in this story of recovery is its African American LGBTQ community.
While many of NO’s gay bars and enclaves were not devastated by Katrina—dis-proving the conservative religious vitriol that the hurricane was finally God’s divine retribution for the city’s then upcoming annual LGBTQ Southern Decadence festival—many of NO’s African American LGBTQ communities are not patrons of its white gay bars, or residents in those communities.
Sadly, the hurricane exposed not only race and class fault lines, but so, too, the odious fault lines of heterosexism and faith-based privilege. LGBTQ evacuees and their families, many of whom are now internally displaced, faced all kinds of discrimination at the hands of many of the faith-based relief agencies—due to their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.
With most of the evacuees being African American—and the fact that sexual orientation is on the “down-low” in much of the African-American community—many African American LGBTQ evacuees experienced discrimination from both their communities and black faith-based institutions.
“The Superdome was no place to be an out black couple,” Jeremiah Leblanc told me in 2005, who then moved to Shreveport, La. “We got lots of stares and all kinds of looks. What were we thinking? But my partner and I were in a panic and didn’t know what to do when we had to leave our home.”
George W. Bush’s faith-based organizations fronted themselves as “armies of compassion” on his behalf. And with black churches conducting a large part of the relief effort, African-American LGBTQ evacuees and their families had neither a chance nor a prayer for assistance.
“When we were all forced to leave the dome, we were gathered like cattle into school buses,” said Leblanc. “[My partner] Le Paul and I both needed our meds, clothes, and a way to find permanent shelter after the storm, but we knew to stay the hell away from the black churches offering help. We couldn’t tell anyone we were sick and HIV-positive. And when we got to Houston, we saw the Salvation Army, but Le Paul and I knew to stay the hell away from that too.”
The Salvation Army delivered no salvation to a lot LGBTQ families. On its Web site, the Salvation Army states: “Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.”
With an administration that believed that restoring a spiritual foundation to American public life had less to do with government involvement and more to do with the participation of faith-based groups, Bush slashed needed government programs by calling on churches and faith-based agencies, at taxpayers’ expense, to provide essential social services that would also impact the lives and well-being of its LGBT citizens.
“Tragedy does not discriminate and neither should relief agencies,” stated Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, in a news release. “In our experience during the aftermath of Sept. 11, LGBT people face compounded difficulties because on top of the disaster they face discrimination when it comes to recognizing their relationships, leading to even more hardship at the worst moment imaginable.”
Many of the LGBTQ families worried about being separated from each other—since Louisiana, at the time, did not recognize same-sex unions.
Leblanc’s partner, who was in the last stages of full-blown AIDS, died two weeks after Katrina. Not legally married, Leblanc was not eligible for surviving-spouse Social Security benefits. Because he is gay, he is also not eligible for any of the faith-based relief assistance to help him get his life back in order.
I’ve been searching for Leblanc for several years, wondering if he had returned to New Orleans. The city still does not have good nor accurate records of its evacuees. Small and marginalized communities, however, keep oral records and memories of their denizens, and Leblanc and Le Paul, I was told, were known among its patrons of Club Fusions, a nationally renown African American gay and transgender nightclub.
But now the nightclub is gone. It just recently and mysteriously went up in flames in the wee hours of August 31.
“To see our home like this, a lot of people called this home, where we feel comfortable, we can be ourselves here, a lot of people gotta hide being gay,” Lateasha Clark told the Times-Picayune. Clark has visited the club since she was 18, but didn’t give her age. “This bar has history, way long ago before Katrina and everything, so everyone knows about this spot, and the alternative lifestyle people.”
Captain Edwin Holmes of the New Orleans Fire Department told WVUE Fox 8 the building is a “total loss.” He reported “the cause was not imitatively clear” and the fire was under investigation.
I wished the same due diligence could be applied in finding LeBlanc, and recovering some of what the LGBTQ black community of NO lost a decade ago.
Weekly LiturgyWeek of: Augsut 30th, 2015
3 am Prayers
When I wake up in the middle of the night and my mind relentlessly gnaws on some bone of contention, I try to remember Snoopy’s observation:
READ ON ...
Worship Materials: Certainty and Doubt From the Celebrating Mystery collection by William Wallace
THEME
From Answers to Questions
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
It is a wise person who knows their ignorance.
You can never grasp all of the mystery.
You can only allow yourself to be grasped by it.
We are not liberated by the struggle for understanding, but by the acceptance of the mystery.
In the realm of thought, four straight lines form a prison, one circle creates a dancing space.
Beyond the definitions there is a boundless space of dancing delight,
Beyond the search for answers lies the place of belonging.
We are not here to make timeless statements but rather to contribute to the ongoing river of thought.
Wisdom is not a crusade but a walk in a fragrant garden with one’s inner sage.
There are no permanent certainties – only interim flashes of wisdom along the way.
We should view our lives not so much in terms of conformity or nonconformity to static ethical, ideological, religious or political norms but rather as an evolving thread.
Beyond the black and white definitions of good and bad lie infinite combinations of love and destruction which we seek to push into simplistic formula for the sake of lazy or insecure minds.
The answers we get are to a large extent limited by the questions which we ask.
Embrace the unknown for it is the doorway to wisdom.
When the line becomes a circle the logic becomes bent and breaks but then intuition dances and sings the mystery of inclusiveness.
If you desire to find all things enter the nothingness and they will find you.
Nothingness is No-thingness i.e. seeing behind the world of things to the neither this nor that which is the everything.
Beyond our attempts to circumscribe mystery, the oneness of nothingness dwells.
Do not search for the gate of wisdom; only stop believing in walls and their security.
Definitions are only useful as descriptions of experience, not as prescriptions for it.
Over-simplification usually involves some form of dualism.
Chaos can either be disorder or an infinitely complex order.
What seems two is in reality one. What seems one is a complex whole for nothing is as simple as it seems.
Between the tree of knowledge and the tree of wisdom flows the river of life.
Chaos is the complex patterning we have not yet understood.
Commonsense comes from the common senses.
Foolishness lies in seeing other people as fools and oneself as wise.
The divine is encountered beyond our prejudices.
Ideology is the deification of simplistic analysis.
Let thinking be the servant of intuition and not its master.
In the interaction lies the confirmation of wisdom.
Hope lies not in what shall be but in what is, for in the moment of oneness we encounter everything.
Faith is choosing to believe beyond the limits of our experience and of our reason.
Having a framework of belief which is held loosely can be empowering but having a framework of belief which is held tightly can be dis-empowering.
The permanent invitation from God is to say Yes to love and to life.
PRAYER
Save us, O God from the fierce pursuit of truth and the illusion that reality
is so simple that it can be contained within the confines of the human mind.
Give us instead a commitment to the journey into the unknown and an openness to receive the loving embrace of the mystery.
HYMNS
The darkness and the light. (BL)
Not in grasping or in holding. (BL)
We are always part of the other. (BL)
Beyond the boxes we create. (BL)
When masks of God both age and die. (BL)
You are the process God. (BL)
O God the great all-knowing One.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
There shall be life and love.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Darkness is my mother.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Buried in my being.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Between our thoughts.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Come let us dwell in that place.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
All will be well.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Christ the tent.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Empty lay the tomb. (STS1)
Epiphany of wisdom’s dawn. (STS1)
God the Sacred Cosmic Life-Blood. (STS1)
What image shall I use? (STS2)
Though rocks move. (STS2)
When Earth wakes from out of sleep. (STS2)
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011, Vol 2 2014 World Library Publications
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
DYING IMAGES
Must dying images
be replaced by new images
or can we worship an imageless God?
A God who is more than a human face,
who is indeed a cosmic presence,
indefinable, beyond limitation,
a rainbow beyond all rainbows,
an inclusive divinity.
NOT AS IT SEEMS
All sound is surrounded by silence,
All stillness is part of the cosmic dance,
All light is composed of color
THE IMAGE
Jailing –
or liberating
the image
bears
and
unmasks
the power
and plight
of oppressed
and oppressor
in provokingly
unpacking
layered reality
of God-like
mystery-filled
life-evoking
pictures
of unlined
unframed
existing.
CERTAINTY AND DOUBT
Into the temple of reason bring mystery,
Into the temple of humanity nature,
Into the temple of order the chaotic wind of Spirit,
Into the temple of light the nurturing darkness
of the all mothering God
SECURITY
Outer security you will never find.
Inner security you already have.
All you need to do is to be aware of it and rest in it.
A PUZZLE
I used to believe that the ultimate mystery was death but now I wonder, for killing seems an even greater mystery – not the how for that has a thousand forms but the why.
I suppose I should be filled with gratitude that I have not been directly involved in the horror of killing another human being.
However that does not mean that I am not a killer! for I have killed mice and rats, flies and spiders, mosquitoes and sand-flies, ants and cockroaches, silverfish etc, etc. Indeed if I hadn’t killed some of them I might well have died or at the very least become seriously ill.
But there are also all the things that other people have killed in order that I might live – cattle and poultry, fish and sheep, etc etc.
Of course I could have become a vegetarian but that would not have been the end of the killing for the lettuce and cabbage etc have been killed before I eat them.
And what about my garden – the limbs I have severed from the trees, the grass cut, the pests destroyed in order to protect my flowers and vegetables.
No it seems that I cannot escape the cycle of killing for all living is dependent on some form of killing.
So what sort of God is there that could allow all this to happen – to have killing built into the very fabric of the universe. And if there has to be killing could we not be spared the sight of animals eating other animals while their victim is still alive.
What answer does the Cross provide for all this? A rather strange one it seems for according to the Christian story God did not intervene to stop the killing of his Son on the Cross but rather seemed to accept it as an inevitable consequence of the behaviour of Jesus. After all Jesus did say that the rich would not be blessed in an afterlife, that the poor would inherit the Earth, that religion can be the enemy of spirituality and compassion, and that we should listen to the wisdom of the earth as well as to human wisdom. Small wonder then that all this inevitably led to crucifixion.
For better or for worse it seems then that God is acquiescent in the process of killing or indeed may even be part of the process. It is then useless to rail against the reality or to pretend that the process does not exist. What we can do is to be as compassionate as we can, to avoid creating unnecessary physical or psychological suffering and to leave behind thoughts of retribution and revenge.
Then when it comes to our time of decrepitude, the time when all other parts of nature are killed by something which is stronger and younger then perhaps we might have the grace to allow each other the dignity of ending our own life rather than idolizing senility.
THE JIGSAW
My life
is a pile
of jigsaw pieces.
In the past
I struggled
to fit them together
into one coherent picture
but every time
there were pieces
that would not fit
so now I have
abandoned
the puzzle.
Perhaps one is not meant to fit them all together.
Perhaps living is more important than problem solving.
Could this be what Christ meant when he said
“I have come to let people encounter life in all its fullness?” (John 10:10)
UPSIDE DOWN
The beams
of the Cathedral’s ceiling
looked like
ribs of an upturned
lifeboat
providing
protection
from elemental
fury.
God when the church
becomes a
life-denying canopy
insulating us
from the full
beauty and passion
of your love
overturn us
that we may sail
boldly
on the waters
of questing faith.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
The new cosmology speaks of a universe in which we are surrounded by an invisible world of dark matter, matter which we cannot see. It has been estimated by some cosmologists that 90-99% of the matter in the universe is dark matter! However, the visible and the invisible are not two separate ‘worlds’ but are in constant inter-action. (For example although we cannot see dark matter, its presence is measurable by its gravitational pull and its effect on light waves).So it is with the known and the unknown. One thing we can be certain of is that the more we come to know the more we realize how much more there is to explore. In the light of all this perhaps our services should begin like this: “Be aware of the mystery; be aware of your own complexity.
The only absolute certainty is mystery! So let us abandon the world of comforting, simplistic illusion and enter the waters of questing imagination. Be baptized by mystery, be confirmed by uncertainty and live in the vast sea of unknowing. How could we shape the rest of our worship to harmonize with such an introduction? How could we provide opportunities to see, touch and smell the mystery of God as well as hearing the Word of God? If certainty is but a temporary phase between uncertainties, should we redefine faith as trust in the unknown, rather than belief in the known, embracing Abraham as the model of adventuring into the unknown.
If what was once thought to be produced by Divine Intervention can now be clearly demonstrated to be the result of cosmic processes or the consequence of human actions where does that leave our belief in God? In my opinion it leaves us with a non-dualistic God, a God who is involved in the processes but who does not step outside of them to engage in actions which contravene one or more of those processes. What is your response to this claim?
Celebrating Mystery Logo
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.
Fear by Jim Burklo
Fear keeps no track of the statistical likelihood
That the boogeyman’ll getcha.
It doesn’t listen to arguments against itself.
It mortifies with mights,
It incarcerates with coulds,
It what-ifs you till you’re stiff
Till you’re droned by don’ts
Remote-controlled with can’ts
Security-fenced with fright.
Fear’s a fever of the imagination,
Extra heartbeats of anticipation
Leading to anti-participation.
Fear makes you crazier than safer,
Not worth the protection you pay for.
Fear’s what you feel about what you don’t know
That prevents you from knowing.
Gangsters won’t go to the woods for fear of the deer,
Lumberjacks won’t go to the city for fear of the gangsters.
Fear makes you vote for politicians
Who are scarier than what you’re afraid of.
Fright starts wars
That are scarier than what started the fight.
But the thing that’s gonna getcha
You can’t predict, I’m gonna betcha.
So next time fear thump-thumps under your bed,
Next time fear gets a hold of your head,
Stare it down with a frown,
Flush it down till it drowns,
Laugh its ass off
And kiss it goodbye.
Musings by Jim Burklo
9-25-13
(I’m teaching a non-credit course in the History of Christian Spirituality at the USC University Religious Center rm 103C, Tues 5-6 pm’s, open to all:
videos of the first and second sessions.)
JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California
For Hope by Richard Holdsworth
My agitation cannot rest, my busy mind is not attentive; hope evades me. Gloom fills darkness and dawn does not dispel my plight. May I accept my weakness with faith that I might let go what troubles me. I put my trust in a power that is stronger than my fears. I try to trust it to lead me through my recurring anxieties, old feelings, habitual attitudes and struggling themes. For in reconciliation to myself, I discover who I really am and am born again in hopeful expectation. © Richard Holdsworth 2012
Events and Updates
Bishop John Shelby Spong Lectures
September 20th, 2015
Inman United Methodist
27 Bishop Street,
Inman, South Carolina
September 26th - 27th, 2015
First United Church of Christ
1735 Fifth Avenue West
Hendersonville, North Carolina
READ ON ...
September 2015
Silence and Centering Prayer
Two founding principals of Contemplative Outreach, Fr. Carl Arico and Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler, will draw upon their over 30 years of experience to offer the conceptual background, the method, and many insights Centering Prayer as a way of life.
read more
Start:
September 7, 2015
End:
October 2, 2015
Location:
Online Course
Registration:
$49.95
HHD service Portland Oregon 2015
I’m Rabbi Brian of Religion-Outside-the-Box. I’ve been running High Holy Day services for 15 years. And, I used to run them from the book. But, every year since 5755, I have led an increasingly more open, organic, and spiritual service. I did away with the book entirely and now run a service from an 8.5 by 11 page and from the heart. Three years ago, my family and I moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon where I continue this meaningful tradition.
read more
Start:
September 18, 2015 06:00 PM
End:
September 18, 2015 08:15 PM
Location:
Meet under the metal structure behind Hollyrood School at the Northeast corner of Grant Park
Portland OR
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?
read more
Start:
September 18, 2015
End:
September 19, 2015
Location:
Westminster Gardens
1420 Santo Domingo Ave
Duarte CA
Bishop Spong Speaks at Inman United Methodist Church (S. Carolina)
Bishop Spong Speaks at Inman United Methodist Church (S. Carolina)
read more
Start:
September 20, 2015 11:00 AM
End:
September 20, 2015 08:00 PM
Location:
INMAN UNITED METHODIST
27 Bishop Street,
Inman United States South Carolina
Bishop Spong speaks at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Hendersonville, NC
Bishop Spong speaks at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Hendersonville, NC
read more
Start:
September 26, 2015 10:00 AM
End:
September 27, 2015 02:00 PM
Location:
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
1735 Fifth Avenue West
Hendersonville United States North Carolina
you are here: events /
View all upcoming events here!
News
Job Listings
Facebook
Twitter
Website
Email
YouTube
Our mailing address is:
ProgressiveChristianity.org
4810 Pt. Fosdick Drive NW#80
Gig Harbor, Washington 98335 United States
____________________________
Not Recovered: Hurricane Katrina’s Struggling Black Gay CommunityIrene Monroe
It has been over a decade now since Hurricane Katrina ...Today, much of the Big Easy has gotten its groove back. But the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward — predominately African American—has not.
READ ON ...
It has been over a decade now since Hurricane Katrina barreled through New Orleans (NO). Today, much of the Big Easy has gotten its groove back. But the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, the largest of seventeen wards of New Orleans—and predominately African American—has not. The demographic group that unfortunately has been, and continues to be, invisible in this story of recovery is its African American LGBTQ community.
While many of NO’s gay bars and enclaves were not devastated by Katrina—dis-proving the conservative religious vitriol that the hurricane was finally God’s divine retribution for the city’s then upcoming annual LGBTQ Southern Decadence festival—many of NO’s African American LGBTQ communities are not patrons of its white gay bars, or residents in those communities.
Sadly, the hurricane exposed not only race and class fault lines, but so, too, the odious fault lines of heterosexism and faith-based privilege. LGBTQ evacuees and their families, many of whom are now internally displaced, faced all kinds of discrimination at the hands of many of the faith-based relief agencies—due to their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.
With most of the evacuees being African American—and the fact that sexual orientation is on the “down-low” in much of the African-American community—many African American LGBTQ evacuees experienced discrimination from both their communities and black faith-based institutions.
“The Superdome was no place to be an out black couple,” Jeremiah Leblanc told me in 2005, who then moved to Shreveport, La. “We got lots of stares and all kinds of looks. What were we thinking? But my partner and I were in a panic and didn’t know what to do when we had to leave our home.”
George W. Bush’s faith-based organizations fronted themselves as “armies of compassion” on his behalf. And with black churches conducting a large part of the relief effort, African-American LGBTQ evacuees and their families had neither a chance nor a prayer for assistance.
“When we were all forced to leave the dome, we were gathered like cattle into school buses,” said Leblanc. “[My partner] Le Paul and I both needed our meds, clothes, and a way to find permanent shelter after the storm, but we knew to stay the hell away from the black churches offering help. We couldn’t tell anyone we were sick and HIV-positive. And when we got to Houston, we saw the Salvation Army, but Le Paul and I knew to stay the hell away from that too.”
The Salvation Army delivered no salvation to a lot LGBTQ families. On its Web site, the Salvation Army states: “Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.”
With an administration that believed that restoring a spiritual foundation to American public life had less to do with government involvement and more to do with the participation of faith-based groups, Bush slashed needed government programs by calling on churches and faith-based agencies, at taxpayers’ expense, to provide essential social services that would also impact the lives and well-being of its LGBT citizens.
“Tragedy does not discriminate and neither should relief agencies,” stated Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, in a news release. “In our experience during the aftermath of Sept. 11, LGBT people face compounded difficulties because on top of the disaster they face discrimination when it comes to recognizing their relationships, leading to even more hardship at the worst moment imaginable.”
Many of the LGBTQ families worried about being separated from each other—since Louisiana, at the time, did not recognize same-sex unions.
Leblanc’s partner, who was in the last stages of full-blown AIDS, died two weeks after Katrina. Not legally married, Leblanc was not eligible for surviving-spouse Social Security benefits. Because he is gay, he is also not eligible for any of the faith-based relief assistance to help him get his life back in order.
I’ve been searching for Leblanc for several years, wondering if he had returned to New Orleans. The city still does not have good nor accurate records of its evacuees. Small and marginalized communities, however, keep oral records and memories of their denizens, and Leblanc and Le Paul, I was told, were known among its patrons of Club Fusions, a nationally renown African American gay and transgender nightclub.
But now the nightclub is gone. It just recently and mysteriously went up in flames in the wee hours of August 31.
“To see our home like this, a lot of people called this home, where we feel comfortable, we can be ourselves here, a lot of people gotta hide being gay,” Lateasha Clark told the Times-Picayune. Clark has visited the club since she was 18, but didn’t give her age. “This bar has history, way long ago before Katrina and everything, so everyone knows about this spot, and the alternative lifestyle people.”
Captain Edwin Holmes of the New Orleans Fire Department told WVUE Fox 8 the building is a “total loss.” He reported “the cause was not imitatively clear” and the fire was under investigation.
I wished the same due diligence could be applied in finding LeBlanc, and recovering some of what the LGBTQ black community of NO lost a decade ago.
Weekly LiturgyWeek of: Augsut 30th, 2015
3 am Prayers
When I wake up in the middle of the night and my mind relentlessly gnaws on some bone of contention, I try to remember Snoopy’s observation:
READ ON ...
Worship Materials: Certainty and Doubt From the Celebrating Mystery collection by William Wallace
THEMEFrom Answers to Questions
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
It is a wise person who knows their ignorance.
You can never grasp all of the mystery.
You can only allow yourself to be grasped by it.
We are not liberated by the struggle for understanding, but by the acceptance of the mystery.
In the realm of thought, four straight lines form a prison, one circle creates a dancing space.
Beyond the definitions there is a boundless space of dancing delight,
Beyond the search for answers lies the place of belonging.
We are not here to make timeless statements but rather to contribute to the ongoing river of thought.
Wisdom is not a crusade but a walk in a fragrant garden with one’s inner sage.
There are no permanent certainties – only interim flashes of wisdom along the way.
We should view our lives not so much in terms of conformity or nonconformity to static ethical, ideological, religious or political norms but rather as an evolving thread.
Beyond the black and white definitions of good and bad lie infinite combinations of love and destruction which we seek to push into simplistic formula for the sake of lazy or insecure minds.
The answers we get are to a large extent limited by the questions which we ask.
Embrace the unknown for it is the doorway to wisdom.
When the line becomes a circle the logic becomes bent and breaks but then intuition dances and sings the mystery of inclusiveness.
If you desire to find all things enter the nothingness and they will find you.
Nothingness is No-thingness i.e. seeing behind the world of things to the neither this nor that which is the everything.
Beyond our attempts to circumscribe mystery, the oneness of nothingness dwells.
Do not search for the gate of wisdom; only stop believing in walls and their security.
Definitions are only useful as descriptions of experience, not as prescriptions for it.
Over-simplification usually involves some form of dualism.
Chaos can either be disorder or an infinitely complex order.
What seems two is in reality one. What seems one is a complex whole for nothing is as simple as it seems.
Between the tree of knowledge and the tree of wisdom flows the river of life.
Chaos is the complex patterning we have not yet understood.
Commonsense comes from the common senses.
Foolishness lies in seeing other people as fools and oneself as wise.
The divine is encountered beyond our prejudices.
Ideology is the deification of simplistic analysis.
Let thinking be the servant of intuition and not its master.
In the interaction lies the confirmation of wisdom.
Hope lies not in what shall be but in what is, for in the moment of oneness we encounter everything.
Faith is choosing to believe beyond the limits of our experience and of our reason.
Having a framework of belief which is held loosely can be empowering but having a framework of belief which is held tightly can be dis-empowering.
The permanent invitation from God is to say Yes to love and to life.
PRAYER
Save us, O God from the fierce pursuit of truth and the illusion that reality
is so simple that it can be contained within the confines of the human mind.
Give us instead a commitment to the journey into the unknown and an openness to receive the loving embrace of the mystery.
HYMNS
The darkness and the light. (BL)
Not in grasping or in holding. (BL)
We are always part of the other. (BL)
Beyond the boxes we create. (BL)
When masks of God both age and die. (BL)
You are the process God. (BL)
O God the great all-knowing One.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
There shall be life and love.
www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/boundlesslife
Darkness is my mother.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Buried in my being.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Between our thoughts.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Come let us dwell in that place.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
All will be well.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Christ the tent.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Empty lay the tomb. (STS1)
Epiphany of wisdom’s dawn. (STS1)
God the Sacred Cosmic Life-Blood. (STS1)
What image shall I use? (STS2)
Though rocks move. (STS2)
When Earth wakes from out of sleep. (STS2)
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011, Vol 2 2014 World Library Publications
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
DYING IMAGES
Must dying images
be replaced by new images
or can we worship an imageless God?
A God who is more than a human face,
who is indeed a cosmic presence,
indefinable, beyond limitation,
a rainbow beyond all rainbows,
an inclusive divinity.
NOT AS IT SEEMS
All sound is surrounded by silence,
All stillness is part of the cosmic dance,
All light is composed of color
THE IMAGE
Jailing –
or liberating
the image
bears
and
unmasks
the power
and plight
of oppressed
and oppressor
in provokingly
unpacking
layered reality
of God-like
mystery-filled
life-evoking
pictures
of unlined
unframed
existing.
CERTAINTY AND DOUBT
Into the temple of reason bring mystery,
Into the temple of humanity nature,
Into the temple of order the chaotic wind of Spirit,
Into the temple of light the nurturing darkness
of the all mothering God
SECURITY
Outer security you will never find.
Inner security you already have.
All you need to do is to be aware of it and rest in it.
A PUZZLE
I used to believe that the ultimate mystery was death but now I wonder, for killing seems an even greater mystery – not the how for that has a thousand forms but the why.
I suppose I should be filled with gratitude that I have not been directly involved in the horror of killing another human being.
However that does not mean that I am not a killer! for I have killed mice and rats, flies and spiders, mosquitoes and sand-flies, ants and cockroaches, silverfish etc, etc. Indeed if I hadn’t killed some of them I might well have died or at the very least become seriously ill.
But there are also all the things that other people have killed in order that I might live – cattle and poultry, fish and sheep, etc etc.
Of course I could have become a vegetarian but that would not have been the end of the killing for the lettuce and cabbage etc have been killed before I eat them.
And what about my garden – the limbs I have severed from the trees, the grass cut, the pests destroyed in order to protect my flowers and vegetables.
No it seems that I cannot escape the cycle of killing for all living is dependent on some form of killing.
So what sort of God is there that could allow all this to happen – to have killing built into the very fabric of the universe. And if there has to be killing could we not be spared the sight of animals eating other animals while their victim is still alive.
What answer does the Cross provide for all this? A rather strange one it seems for according to the Christian story God did not intervene to stop the killing of his Son on the Cross but rather seemed to accept it as an inevitable consequence of the behaviour of Jesus. After all Jesus did say that the rich would not be blessed in an afterlife, that the poor would inherit the Earth, that religion can be the enemy of spirituality and compassion, and that we should listen to the wisdom of the earth as well as to human wisdom. Small wonder then that all this inevitably led to crucifixion.
For better or for worse it seems then that God is acquiescent in the process of killing or indeed may even be part of the process. It is then useless to rail against the reality or to pretend that the process does not exist. What we can do is to be as compassionate as we can, to avoid creating unnecessary physical or psychological suffering and to leave behind thoughts of retribution and revenge.
Then when it comes to our time of decrepitude, the time when all other parts of nature are killed by something which is stronger and younger then perhaps we might have the grace to allow each other the dignity of ending our own life rather than idolizing senility.
THE JIGSAW
My life
is a pile
of jigsaw pieces.
In the past
I struggled
to fit them together
into one coherent picture
but every time
there were pieces
that would not fit
so now I have
abandoned
the puzzle.
Perhaps one is not meant to fit them all together.
Perhaps living is more important than problem solving.
Could this be what Christ meant when he said
“I have come to let people encounter life in all its fullness?” (John 10:10)
UPSIDE DOWN
The beams
of the Cathedral’s ceiling
looked like
ribs of an upturned
lifeboat
providing
protection
from elemental
fury.
God when the church
becomes a
life-denying canopy
insulating us
from the full
beauty and passion
of your love
overturn us
that we may sail
boldly
on the waters
of questing faith.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
The new cosmology speaks of a universe in which we are surrounded by an invisible world of dark matter, matter which we cannot see. It has been estimated by some cosmologists that 90-99% of the matter in the universe is dark matter! However, the visible and the invisible are not two separate ‘worlds’ but are in constant inter-action. (For example although we cannot see dark matter, its presence is measurable by its gravitational pull and its effect on light waves).So it is with the known and the unknown. One thing we can be certain of is that the more we come to know the more we realize how much more there is to explore. In the light of all this perhaps our services should begin like this: “Be aware of the mystery; be aware of your own complexity.
The only absolute certainty is mystery! So let us abandon the world of comforting, simplistic illusion and enter the waters of questing imagination. Be baptized by mystery, be confirmed by uncertainty and live in the vast sea of unknowing. How could we shape the rest of our worship to harmonize with such an introduction? How could we provide opportunities to see, touch and smell the mystery of God as well as hearing the Word of God? If certainty is but a temporary phase between uncertainties, should we redefine faith as trust in the unknown, rather than belief in the known, embracing Abraham as the model of adventuring into the unknown.
If what was once thought to be produced by Divine Intervention can now be clearly demonstrated to be the result of cosmic processes or the consequence of human actions where does that leave our belief in God? In my opinion it leaves us with a non-dualistic God, a God who is involved in the processes but who does not step outside of them to engage in actions which contravene one or more of those processes. What is your response to this claim?Celebrating Mystery Logo
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.
Fear by Jim Burklo
Fear keeps no track of the statistical likelihoodThat the boogeyman’ll getcha.
It doesn’t listen to arguments against itself.
It mortifies with mights,
It incarcerates with coulds,
It what-ifs you till you’re stiff
Till you’re droned by don’ts
Remote-controlled with can’ts
Security-fenced with fright.
Fear’s a fever of the imagination,
Extra heartbeats of anticipation
Leading to anti-participation.
Fear makes you crazier than safer,
Not worth the protection you pay for.
Fear’s what you feel about what you don’t know
That prevents you from knowing.
Gangsters won’t go to the woods for fear of the deer,
Lumberjacks won’t go to the city for fear of the gangsters.
Fear makes you vote for politicians
Who are scarier than what you’re afraid of.
Fright starts wars
That are scarier than what started the fight.
But the thing that’s gonna getcha
You can’t predict, I’m gonna betcha.
So next time fear thump-thumps under your bed,
Next time fear gets a hold of your head,
Stare it down with a frown,
Flush it down till it drowns,
Laugh its ass off
And kiss it goodbye.
Musings by Jim Burklo
9-25-13
(I’m teaching a non-credit course in the History of Christian Spirituality at the USC University Religious Center rm 103C, Tues 5-6 pm’s, open to all:
videos of the first and second sessions.)
JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California
For Hope by Richard Holdsworth
My agitation cannot rest, my busy mind is not attentive; hope evades me. Gloom fills darkness and dawn does not dispel my plight. May I accept my weakness with faith that I might let go what troubles me. I put my trust in a power that is stronger than my fears. I try to trust it to lead me through my recurring anxieties, old feelings, habitual attitudes and struggling themes. For in reconciliation to myself, I discover who I really am and am born again in hopeful expectation. © Richard Holdsworth 2012Events and Updates
Bishop John Shelby Spong Lectures
September 20th, 2015
Inman United Methodist
27 Bishop Street,
Inman, South Carolina
September 26th - 27th, 2015
First United Church of Christ
1735 Fifth Avenue West
Hendersonville, North Carolina
READ ON ...
September 2015
Silence and Centering Prayer
Two founding principals of Contemplative Outreach, Fr. Carl Arico and Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler, will draw upon their over 30 years of experience to offer the conceptual background, the method, and many insights Centering Prayer as a way of life.
read more
Start:
September 7, 2015
End:
October 2, 2015
Location:
Online Course
Registration:
$49.95
HHD service Portland Oregon 2015
I’m Rabbi Brian of Religion-Outside-the-Box. I’ve been running High Holy Day services for 15 years. And, I used to run them from the book. But, every year since 5755, I have led an increasingly more open, organic, and spiritual service. I did away with the book entirely and now run a service from an 8.5 by 11 page and from the heart. Three years ago, my family and I moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon where I continue this meaningful tradition.
read more
Start:
September 18, 2015 06:00 PM
End:
September 18, 2015 08:15 PM
Location:
Meet under the metal structure behind Hollyrood School at the Northeast corner of Grant Park
Portland OR
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?
read more
Start:
September 18, 2015
End:
September 19, 2015
Location:
Westminster Gardens
1420 Santo Domingo Ave
Duarte CA
Bishop Spong Speaks at Inman United Methodist Church (S. Carolina)
Bishop Spong Speaks at Inman United Methodist Church (S. Carolina)
read more
Start:
September 20, 2015 11:00 AM
End:
September 20, 2015 08:00 PM
Location:
INMAN UNITED METHODIST
27 Bishop Street,
Inman United States South Carolina
Bishop Spong speaks at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Hendersonville, NC
Bishop Spong speaks at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Hendersonville, NC
read more
Start:
September 26, 2015 10:00 AM
End:
September 27, 2015 02:00 PM
Location:
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
1735 Fifth Avenue West
Hendersonville United States North Carolina
you are here: events /
View all upcoming events here!
News
Job Listings
FacebookTwitterWebsiteEmailYouTubeOur mailing address is:
ProgressiveChristianity.org
4810 Pt. Fosdick Drive NW#80
Gig Harbor, Washington 98335 United States
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment