Missionary Renegade: Weekly Recap for Tuesday, October 25, 2016 from ProgressiveChristianity.org of Rig Harbor, Washington, United States "Should we be preserving seeds from multiple threats such as mining, free trade agreements, agrochemicals, hybrid and transgenic seeds? This and more in our Free Weekly Recap of our most viewed and new resources from last week."

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Weekly Recap for Tuesday, October 25, 2016 from ProgressiveChristianity.org of Rig Harbor, Washington, United States "Should we be preserving seeds from multiple threats such as mining, free trade agreements, agrochemicals, hybrid and transgenic seeds? This and more in our Free Weekly Recap of our most viewed and new resources from last week."

Weekly Recap for Tuesday, October 25, 2016 from ProgressiveChristianity.org of Rig Harbor, Washington, United States "Should we be preserving seeds from multiple threats such as mining, free trade agreements, agrochemicals, hybrid and transgenic seeds? This and more in our Free Weekly Recap of our most viewed and new resources from last week."

Last Week At ProgressiveChristianity.org ...
We delved into the topics of: Preserving Seeds, Living Spiritual Teachers Project, Ethical Wills and All Saint's Day.
Visit our website to join in on the discussion and to view our thousands of spiritual resources!
We are entirely reader supported, please support us today.

ProgressiveChristianity.org is a global portal for authors, scholars, theologians and liturgists to share their resources for the progressive spiritual journey.
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Three Colombian women tell us why preserving seeds is an act of resistance

Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo, Rabble
Protection of native seeds is growing strong in Colombia. Colombian women are preserving seeds from multiple threats such as mining, free trade agreements, agrochemicals, hybrid and transgenic seeds among others.
Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo spoke with three women from three different provinces in Colombia about how being a seed guardian is an act of resistance, promotes food security and maintains cultural identity.
Tulia Álvarez is a 70-year-old smallholder farmer and a seed guardian in Colombia. Her family has lived all its life in the countryside where Álvarez learned how to raise animals and cultivate the land.
Life in the cities scares her. She prefers to stay away and travels occasionally to Duitama and Bogotá to sell food that she grows at her farm. Álvarez sells carrots, corn, beans, cilantro, quinoa, amaranth, lettuce, chard, peas and native seeds.

“Our seeds are the most important for our food security and food sovereignty; if we don’t take care of our seeds we won’t have food,” Álvarez told rabble.
When asked why women become seed guardians, she responded that women are traditionally responsible for the family orchards and they are concerned about providing food to their families.
There are several women’s organizations protecting seeds in Boyacá such as San Isidro, Asociación de Mujeres Presente y Futuro, among others. “Seeds are sacred. It is why we have to protect them and love them. If there is abundance of seeds and we waste them, they will be gone… like a child that is reprimanded and never comes back.”
While Álvarez is preserving seeds in Boyacá, thousand of kilometers south of Colombia, Alba Portillo is doing the same with other women.
Portillo is 32 years old and was born in Yacuanquer, a small town located near the Galeras Volcano. Yacuanquer is a Quechua word that means sepulchre of the Gods. Her parents are farmers. She was raised by a family, which has the tradition to talk in the kitchen while making meals on a wood stove with food they grew and harvested such as beans, corn, squash, arracacha and cilantro.
“In my opinion each afro-Colombian woman, female farmer or Indigenous woman who decides to plant native seeds is a seed guardian,” Portillo told rabble.

Photo: Alba Portillo
Being a seed guardian is more than a job, it is her vocation. When she was growing up, Portillo observed that the landscape of the territory she calls home was dramatically changing. Famers had less water and food. She also encountered classmates at school who thought that kids from the countryside were poor and fools.
Later on she came to the conclusion that a lot of people in the cities don’t value farmers who grow their food. “Farmers’ work is underpaid and not appreciated. Then, I reflected that food is life’s centre and without seeds food won’t exist. If seeds are gone it will be the extinction of a millenary culture, identity, memory and our roots,” Portillo says.
Portillo belongs to an organization called Red the Guardianes de Semillas de Vida were she promotes growing food in a sustainable way and without agrochemicals. “If farmers don’t have seeds, water and land, they lost everything. Losing the seeds is like being orphans of history.”
Nariño is the centre of agro diversity on the Ecuadorian Andes region. Nowadays Portillo’s organization has 1,200 seed varieties such as quinoa, amaranth, native corn, beans, peas, flowers, tomato and different kinds trees.
“Seeds are sacred. They have lived here and evolved during 11,000 years — in relation to human beings — as part of our family, who has the food has the power,” says Portillo.
Velma Echavarría is an Embera Chamí Indigenous woman who belongs to the Cañamomo-Lomaprieta Reserve in Riosucio (Caldas). She and approximately 40 other women take part of the network that guards seeds.
Cidra, yacón, sagún, cassava, beans, corn, medicinal plants and timber-yielding trees are some of the seeds they protect. Their task is not easy.
Corn seeds are the most threatened and more difficult to preserve because transgenic corn crop is legal in Colombia and there is not protection from the state for afro-Colombians, Indigenous and farmers who want to preserve native seeds; on the contrary, regulations pose a risk to native seeds and rural communities, Echavarría told rabble.”

Photo: Velma Echavarría
On her reserve, Echavarría and other people offer educational sessions to their community about the harmful impact of transgenic seeds on their food sovereignty and food security.
Thanks to their work, Cañamomo-Lomaprieta Reserve was declared a Transgenic Free Territory in 2009.
Preserving seeds is crucial to Indigenous autonomy. “The relation is direct and essential. This is an act of resistance and autonomy because we pursue the good life for communities within the ancestral territory, prevent displacement and the lost of cultural identity.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo is a Colombian journalist, has amaster’s degree in international relations and is a social service worker. During her time as a social service worker, she was elected as a human rights representative for people of colour at BCGEU union in Vancouver. Fernanda has 20 years of experience. She worked for traditional media sucThree Colombia women tell us why preserving seeds is an act of resistanceh as El Espectador and El Tiempo in her country but now she is a freelancer for online media in Colombia, Spain and Latin America.
She wrote seven books about women. In 2014, she received the Colibrí award in Barrancabermeja (Colombia) for her contribution to peace through journalism. Nowadays, she is a Carter’s Center fellow and a law student. She is a feminist.
Article Originally Published Here: Rabble
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Living Spiritual Teachers Project

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & PracticeThe twenty-first century has been dubbed the “age of interspirituality” by Brother Wayne Teasdale and others who are impressed by the increased sharing of wisdom and practices among people coming from different spiritual traditions. It acknowledges that beneath the diversity of our faith and life experiences lies a deeper unity of spirituality.
Certainly publishers have taken note of this trend – making available an unprecedented array of resources from all the world’s religions and spiritual traditions. Retreat centers are now offering a wide variety of multifaith programs.
Still, many of us only pay attention to teachers in our own tradition. The result is a missed opportunity to expand and deepen our spirituality by learning from the sacred texts and practices of others.
The “Living Spiritual Teachers Project” is an ongoing project of Spirituality & Practice’s website. We hope these brief profiles will make it easier for you to identify living teachers whose wisdom might augment your spiritual journey. We’ve included a brief biography, a list of the teacher’s distinctive contributions to spiritual wisdom, a quotation sampler, plus links to our reviews of his/her books, articles, interviews, audio and video clips, the teacher’s website, and more.
This Project is very much a work in progress, so please check back often to read profiles of other spiritual teachers. (See also the Remembering Spiritual Masters Project.)
Click here to go to Spirituality & Practice Website to browse teachers
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Ethical Wills / Legacy Letters

Your Legacy of Values

An ethical will, or legacy letter, is a way to share your values, blessings, life’s lessons, hopes and dreams for the future, love, and forgiveness with your family, friends, and community.
An ethical will is not a legal document; it does not distribute your material wealth. It is a heartfelt expression of what truly matters most in your life.
Ethical wills are not new. References to this tradition are found in both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible (Genesis Ch. 49, John Ch. 15-18) and in other cultures. Today, ethical wills are being written by people at turning points and transitions in their lives and when facing challenging life situations. They are usually shared with family and community while the writer is still alive.
An ethical will may be one of the most cherished and meaningful gifts you can leave to your family and community.
Listen to this moving story from National Public Radio about why one woman decided to write an ethical will for her young children:

Some of the Topics Covered:
* Why write an Ethical Will?
* What’s in an Ethical Will?
* When would I write an Ethical Will?
* Next Steps:
* Real-Life Examples of Ethical Wills
* How to write an Ethical Will
* Preserving your Ethical Will
Watch Martha Bird speaks about the experience of writing her ethical will
with the help of a Celebrations of Life Legacy Facilitator.

Ethical Will Products – Click Image to Purchase

Click Here to Visit Celebration of Life Website
READ ON ...
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Liturgy Selection

All Saint's DayAll Saints’ Day (or All Hallows’ Day on November 1st) and All Souls’ Day (also called Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos on November 2nd) combine to form a special time each year to remember those who have gone before us. These church holidays are celebrations of gratitude, the continuity of life and a reminder of our place in the cycle.

All Saints Day: A Progressive Call to Remember by Diana Butler Bass
I’ve often wondered why progressive Christians don’t typically celebrate All Saints Day on November 1 with more enthusiasm. It is, next to Christmas and Easter, my favorite church holy day–I eagerly await reading the texts of our Christian ancestors and the communal singing, “For All the Saints,” in my Episcopal church.
Earlier this year, I published a history of Christianity, A People’s History of Christianity, a book focused on “saints” of the liberal and progressive tradition–people like Origen, Perpetua, Abelard and Heloise, Katarina Zell, Lazarus Spengler, Anne Askew, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Maria Stewart, and Samuel Green. The stories told therein are about generosity and justice, about prophetic preaching and speaking truth to power. As a result, I’ve spent the better part of 2009 in mainline churches and with progressive Christian groups talking about history and why history is important to both our spiritual lives and to enacting social justice.
And I’ve listened to many mainline Christians share their reticence about engaging history, thinking about tradition, and the stories of our saints.
Of all Christians, liberal and progressive ones have the most awkward relationship with history and tradition. After all, liberal Christianity developed from “modernism,” a way of looking at the world that privileged new ideas, philosophies, and sciences as part of God’s revelation in human culture. Modernists broke with tradition. They looked to the human past and saw much wanting–superstition, violence, and repression–and willingly abandoned that past, especially the religious past, in favor of reason and enlightenment. In the nineteenth century, many Christians accepted modernism and worked to adapt their faith to the new intellectual climate. At its birth, progressive religion was the offspring of a certain sort of historical ambiguity. In the last two centuries, western Christians willingly shattered memory because the past was too painful, too oppressive, and too morbid for modern sensibilities of tolerance and equality. Better forget than remember.
Read on at Beliefnet.

read more
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For All the Ways
Tune: by Jim Burklo
For all the ways we help each other grow
As we share stories, moments high and low
The face of Christ among us now will show
We sing allelujia, allelujia.
For all the people that our church holds dear
For every precious memory made here
For those we serve in love, both far and near
We sing allelujia, allelujia.
For times when silence is the truest word
Or when the prophet’s thund’ring voice is heard
For tears and laughter that our church has stirred
We sing allelujia, allelujia.
In all our struggles, God will lead us through
And give us strength to do what we must do
To gain the peace and justice we pursue
We sing allelujia, allelujia.

…read more
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Events and Updates
The Tikkun Strategy Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebration
A strategy conference for liberals and progressives ... and a ceremony on Sunday to give out the Tikkun Awards November 12th and 13th in Berkeley, CA
The Tikkun Strategy Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebration

Now What—After the Election?
Join Us for Tikkun’s Strategy Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebration November 12th and 13th in Berkeley, CA (Co-Sponsered by the Metta Center for Nonviolence)!

What: A two-day strategy conference for liberals and progressives about what direction the left should take after the results of the November election and a ceremony on Sunday to give out the Tikkun Award to a few of the many people whose lives are embodying Tikkun‘s message of global healing and transformation. This year’s awards feature noted peace-activist and singer Holly Near, award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (most recently, the new movie “Snowden”), Rabbi Arik Ascherman (for 21 years chair of Rabbis for Human Rights), Stanford history professor and editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Clayborne Carson, cultural anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Aaron Davidman (creator of “Wrestling with Jerusalem” and more! We also want to “honor the activists,” so if you are one, come! If you know some, invite them to come! And if you would like to honor those people who have been activists, come! But come also if you simply want to participate in thinking through the challenges facing us in American society in the coming 4-8 years (not just in electoral politics, but in changing the direction of our society).
Where: Berkeley, CA Saturday, Nov 12: The Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda (between Los Angeles Ave and Solano Ave in Berkeley. Sunday, Nov. 13 The First Congregational Church of Berkeley (corner of Channing Way and Dana St, 2 blocks from the U.C. Berkeley campus). Book a hotel early if you know you are coming! For lists of hotels, google: Hotels in Berkeley, Ca.
Cost: TBA. Will offer a sliding scale.
Join us for an inspirational, dynamic, and joyous weekend where the Tikkun community (including our interfaith, secular-humanist-and-atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives) and the Metta Center for Nonviolence will strategize what’s next for liberals and progressives following the results of the November election, and how can we bring into the liberal and progressive movements a new level of psychological and spiritual sophistication to counter the continuing growth of fascistic and racist tendencies that surfaced in the 2016 election.
This visionary weekend will feature two parts: a strategy conference to discuss and strengthen our collective vision of what progressive politics should look like (a positive vision of what we as progressives actually believe in, not simply an understanding of what we are against), and a ceremony/celebration of individuals who we think are already pioneering their vision of love in the world.
This pertinent, exciting conference weekend is still being planned and organized. Below is a rough sketch of how the events will flow.

Musical artist/peace activist and 2016 Tikkun Award recipient Holly Near.
Click here to sign up for our mailing list and receive up-to-date information on this event, as plans develop and details continue to be confirmed. (Note: This is not the same as purchasing a ticket. Signing up with this link will only sign you up for our mailing list, where you will be kept in the loop on all the latest conference related information).
Why a Strategy Conference? Liberal and progressive activists, intellectuals and ordinary folk made an amazing contribution to American society this past year by pushing into the mainstream progressive ideas that have long been marginalized by the media, importantly issues around economic inequality, racism, the incredible burden of student loans, and the deepening environmental crisis. So Tikkun magazine, the voice of Jewish and interfaith progressives as well as secular humanists and atheist progressives, and the Metta Center for Nonviolence want to take some of our time at Tikkun magazine’s 30th anniversary celebration to honor the activists and all those who contributed to this development. If you are reading this, chances are high that you are one such person, whether you did this in spreading the ideas of social change movements, fought for those ideas in your support for Hillary, Bernie, Jill Stein or advanced those ideas in a variety of other ways..
Unfortunately, liberals and progressives will be facing a set of difficult challenges after the November election, no matter who wins (though the challenges will certainly be different, depending on the outcome). None of the likely winners is going to deliver the kind of society we need to heal and repair the damage done to human beings both here and around the world or the damage to the environment, which is why it is imperative that we come together to strategize what’s next for the left. Not only in regard to how to impact future elections, but in how to change consciousness in the society as a whole outside the electoral arena.
We encourage input and participation from the widest possible bandwidth of liberal and progressive voices. We are inviting anyone who believes in the importance of having a vision of what progressives are for to join us as we reflect on and attempt to develop a strategy or shared strategies for the next 4-8 years. People who supported Hillary Clinton and rejoiced at the possibility of a woman becoming the President of the U.S., people who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries, people who supported Jill Stein, and people who found other paths to advance progressive ideas in past years are hereby invited to attend and participate.
And we will be presenting some of our own ideas about how best to counter the impact of racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and xenophobic ideas that (sadly) received legitimization in the 2016 election process and hence are likely to be a factor in the mainstream politics of the coming years. But we also want to counter the probable tilt toward the interests of the upper 1% of income earners, the banks, investment companies, insurance companies and the largest corporations which have dominated both major parties in the past many decades. We have strategic ideas on how to do that. We also welcome YOUR ideas about how to speak to the pain and anger surfacing in 2016, not only in the US but in many of the advanced capitalist societies around the world.

Playwright and 2016 Tikkun Award recipient Aaron Davidman.
A Note on Being a “Spiritual Progressive”: Tikkun and the Metta Center for Nonviolence have worked together in the framework of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and invite you to become members as well. By “spiritual” we mean everything about reality that cannot be empirically verified or made subject to measurement — including ethical and aesthetic issues, consciousness itself, love, kindness and generosity, and much more —so atheists and secular humanists and scientists can also be spiritual in our sense of the word. Our Network of Spiritual Progressives has many atheists or secular humanists as well as people from the diversity of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions. We advocate for A New Bottom Line that judges institutions, government policies, our economic lives, our political system, our educational system, in fact, most areas of our lives together in community by the extent to which they maximize our capacities to be loving and kind, generous and caring for each other and caring for the earth. We seek to put the New Bottom Line in place of the “old bottom line” of money and power, which so far have dominated too many areas of our lives, our economy, our politics and even seeped in to our personal lives.
A Rough Sketch of Events (stay in the loop as we finalize details!):
Saturday November 12th
Saturday (10 a.m. – 8 p.m.): We will have a morning strategy session, led by Michael Nagler and the Metta Center for Nonviolence, where will we focus on “the New Story” of the universe and how that impacts our way of thinking about politics.
At the same time, in an adjacent room, Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cat Zavis will be leading a Shabbat morning service and Torah study for those who are Sabbath observers. (A gentle reminder that we greatly value and encourage participation from atheists and secular humanists, and all religious rituals/ceremonies are optional).
There will be a break in the schedule for people to get lunch.
In the afternoon we will focus on what a psychological understanding of American politics and a New Bottom Line consciousness could add to transforming the politics of the coming period — and will provide an opportunity for attendees to use their own experience and wisdom to see how to apply a psychologically sensitive and New Bottom Line-oriented thinking to the concrete issues that will be arising in regard to foreign policy and the military, economic policy, racism, education, our political system, law and the judicial system and prisons, the world of work, and much else.
Part of this time will include exploring the specific strategies developed by Tikkun including the ESRA Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Tikkun version of the proposed Global Marshall Plan (please read it and download the full glossy brochure), and the 9 point “New Bottom Line” and how it plays out in a proposed Spiritual Covenant.
There will be time made for dinner
Sunday Nov. 13th
Morning:
You are invited to the Christian service led by Rev. Molly Baskette at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, or any other church you wish to attend, or connect with another religious or spiritual community, or meditate, or otherwise refresh and nourish your soul.
(1 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.):
Tikkun and NSP leaders Rabbi Michael Lerner, Peter Gabel, and Cat Zavis will share reflections on the contemporary reality of Western societies and the changes in consciousness necessary to overcome every form of “demeaning the other” and also overcome the forces that are engaged in destroying the life support system of the planet. And then…

A major part of Sunday afternoon will be the Tikkun Awards.
This year are we honored to give these awards to recipients that include Academy Award winning filmmaker Oliver Stone; Holly Near the progressive singer-songwriter; Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the chair for 21 years of Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem (he is flying in from Jerusalem to receive the award); Nancy Scheper-Hughes the cultural anthropologist and author of Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland, Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday life in Brazil, and Commodifying Bodies; Aaron Davidman who wrote and stars (playing 16 different people) in the fabulous play (now also a movie) called “Wrestling Jerusalem,” and Clayborne Carson, the Stanford professor of history, author of In struggle: SNCC and the Black awakening of the 1960s, Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. A Memoir, and senior editor, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vols. 1-4.
In the past we have given out this award to brilliant and significant folks like author Grace Paley, Howard Zinn (People’s History of the U.S.), U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, poet Marge Piercy, peace and human rights champion Member of Knesset Shulamit Aloni, songwriter Pete Singer, Marion Wright Edelman, Irving Howe, poet Allen Ginsberg, poet C.K. Williams, Congressman Raul Grijalva, South African Justice Richard Goldstone (a close associate of Nelson Mandela and author of the UN report on Israeli and Palestinian human rights violations), Rabbi Marcia Prager, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, author of Maus Art Spiegelman, Cornel West, and founder of Zeytuna Islamic College Hamza Yusuf.
This looks to be an exciting, heartfelt, and critically important weekend. Your participation and engagement in discussions surrounding how we want to create a future that is infused with love for the sacredness of all people, dearly matters. We look forward to strategizing, debating, and joining in sacred community with you and forging a new future together, rooted in the heart and a sense of wonder and healing possibility. Join us!
Be sure to click here to sign up for more information, as exciting new information is sure to come, and you don’t want to miss out. By the end of September we will have a basically set, established schedule. (Once again, signing up here is not the same as purchasing a ticket. Signing up with this link will only sign you up for our mailing list, where you will be kept in the loop on all the latest conference related information). If you already know you want to come, please make reservations at a Berkeley area hotel or find other accommodations.
We so look forward to being with you!
If you can’t come, please help us financially by making a generous donation to Tikkun, so that we can offset the costs of this event.

Images

Start:
November 12, 2016
End:
November 13, 2016
Location:
Nov 12th - The Northbrae Community Church
Nov 13th - The First Congregational Church of Berkeley
Berkeley CA United States
Google Map
Register:
TBA- with sliding scale
Organization:
Tikkun Magazine
Website:
http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/tikkun-strategy-conference-and-30th-anniversary-celebration

READ ON ...
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Missionary Renegade

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

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