Weekly Recap for Tuesday, January 31, 2017 from The ProgressiveChristianity.org in Gig Harbor, Washington, United States "Did white women march for civil rights, or diminishment of their own white privilege? 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: Withholding charity for the poor, A prayer for embracing all people, A blacks perspective on the Women's March, and seeking to understand God.
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Who is My Brother’s Keeper?
Frank Lesko
Deep down, we know we are our brother’s keeper–but it scares us. We would have to change so much, and let go of so much, so we turn away.
Deep down, we know we are our brother’s keeper–but it scares us. We would have to change so much, and let go of so much, so we turn away.
This picture has been going viral lately.It is easy to draw conclusions from it. You see a homeless man with a sign asking for money. Standing next to him is a Wal-Mart employee with a “Hiring” sign. The Wal-Mart employee is looking right at the homeless man (as if to invite him to apply), but the homeless man is not looking at the Wal-Mart employee.
When we come face-to-face with someone begging for money, the most human response is to feel empathy. However, we are afraid to engage with this person. We don’t want to get involved in his life. We have things to do and other plans for our time and money. It is also scary to let go and enter into the Gospel call to charity and love. Faced with all the pain in the world, if we started opening our hearts and responding to the needs of the world, how could we possibly have anything at all left for ourselves? We could easily give everything–including our very lives–on behalf of others. In response to this, we hunker down and find reasons to block them out.
Deep down, we know we are our brother’s keeper–but it scares us. We would have to change so much, and let go of so much, so we turn away.
This picture is designed to alleviate people from having empathy or a conscience to do anything about poverty. The message is: “He’s poor/homeless by his own choice, so we don’t have any responsibility to him whatsoever.”
This picture may reassure us that this man is homeless due to his own choices. It seems abundantly clear that opportunities to change his life situation are readily available–in this case, literally standing right next to him.
It means we don’t have to feel sympathy for the man asking for money. It means we can wash ourselves of any responsibility to do anything for this man or change the social conditions that may have brought him to the point in life where he is begging for money. We don’t have to change ourselves at all. We simply do not have to do anything.
The message is even more sinister than that: It suggests that it would be bad if we did help him. If so, we would somehow be interfering with his own spiritual development. He needs the satisfaction of a job well done in order to build up his self-confidence, some say. If we help him, we would be robbing him of the opportunity to meet his own needs. We could risk spiritually crippling him.
I’ve heard those arguments before, and I’m sure you have, too.
Like most things in life, the answers are not always so simple. We all know a family member who has managed to meander through life subsisting almost entirely off of handouts. Parents, siblings and neighbors feel sorry for that person and coddle him endlessly. What’s the result? The person ends up spoiled. He is angry and demanding. In a situation like that, it is easy to say that the charity is not helping him but rather only enabling his dependence. It does not create a happy person but rather a miserable, dependent person. We are doing things for him that he could and should do for himself. We end up feeling good about ourselves but doing no good at all.
Pictures like this one are designed to uphold the belief that efforts to help poor people are nothing more than a scam–the poor are poor either by their own choices or their own laziness, nothing more.
I have done a fair bit of charity and outreach work. Those who are taking advantage of the system are a small minority when they exist at all. The people who would benefit from “tough love” are few and far between. Stopping all charity efforts in order to “teach those people a lesson” would be to literally starve the vast majority who genuinely need that help in order to impact the few who would be better off without.
I can also tell you that in 100% of cases, if someone is poor and asking for help, they certainly need something. They may not need money or a handout, but they need something.
The Gospels call us to compassion. From the Greek, “compassion” literally means “to walk with.” In order to follow the Gospel call of compassion, we actually have to walk with people–not judge them from a distance. Then and only then we will be in a position to have the courage to decide if we are actually enabling their happiness or enabling their problems. Even then, any decision like that must be met with incredible trepidation, but at least we would have some basis for making that very serious decision to withhold charity from a person asking for it. Usually, it is best not to make judgments on a person at all, but in reality there are times when helping someone out can pull you into an unhealthy, draining codependent relationship, and you have to set a boundary and know when to opt out in those cases. You can’t possibly know that from looking at a picture about two men you know nothing about.
People who have strict opinions about refusing charity to the poor, refusing asylum to immigrants and refugees and refusing mercy to the imprisoned are almost always people who have very little direct experience with these people and the details of their lives. Walk with people, and get to know their lives and how they arrived at their present condition.
The Facebook page Kissing Fish quoted the following brilliant response to this picture:
Traci Schloss Brown, September 18
I’ve been waiting to comment on this picture that has been shared with the intent being humorous and probably spurred by some underlying frustration. Today is the day to serve up a little reality. Here are my questions for the Walmart guy:
1) Will you hire him if he doesn’t pass a background check or has committed a felony?
2) Will you provide him clothes to work in and when those get dirty will you help him get them washed or do you think that first paycheck will pay for an apartment, utilities, appliances, and laundry detergent?
3) Will you immediately pay for any healthcare including mental healthcare he needs? With medications?
4) Will you keep him as an employee if he has an exacerbation of PTSD, anxiety, schizophrenia, or anything else while at work?
5) Will you have someone watch his only earthly possessions while he is working so no one steals them?
6) Will you provide childcare or transportation or a bed for a good night’s sleep or food to sustain him while he works? (I could go on…)
Maybe the answers are “yes.” If so, kudos to you and I will be bringing a large number of friends to apply for every opening you have. If not, hmmmm…. the “just get a freaking job” argument is not so easy to quip, is it? Many of those who are homeless do work or want to work. Many can’t. It is truly not a simple fix. Judging them helps in no way at all! Some homeless hold signs… One of the reasons is because people don’t talk to them. (I am fully aware there are bogus people out there plying on sympathies who hold signs and don’t have legitimate needs…. I actually don’t advocate for giving cash to those “flying signs.”) My point is, “just get a damn job” is not simple. Please take some time to understand some of the most devastating underlying issues. These are people with feelings and worth. Please treat them like it!!
It is also worth adding that many Wal-Mart employees require public assistance to supplement their income. Wal-Mart may have available jobs, but those jobs do not provide for a living, even with full-time hours. It’s a sad day indeed when it’s better to be on the street begging than working at America’s largest employer.
NOTE: According to this website, the picture is a fake and the local affiliate of Wal-Mart does not know who the man is holding the “Now Hiring” sign.
What does it say when people have to fabricate a fake picture in order to prove a point?
Visit Frank Lesko’s website The Traveling Ecumenist
READ ON ...
When we come face-to-face with someone begging for money, the most human response is to feel empathy. However, we are afraid to engage with this person. We don’t want to get involved in his life. We have things to do and other plans for our time and money. It is also scary to let go and enter into the Gospel call to charity and love. Faced with all the pain in the world, if we started opening our hearts and responding to the needs of the world, how could we possibly have anything at all left for ourselves? We could easily give everything–including our very lives–on behalf of others. In response to this, we hunker down and find reasons to block them out.
Deep down, we know we are our brother’s keeper–but it scares us. We would have to change so much, and let go of so much, so we turn away.
This picture is designed to alleviate people from having empathy or a conscience to do anything about poverty. The message is: “He’s poor/homeless by his own choice, so we don’t have any responsibility to him whatsoever.”
This picture may reassure us that this man is homeless due to his own choices. It seems abundantly clear that opportunities to change his life situation are readily available–in this case, literally standing right next to him.
It means we don’t have to feel sympathy for the man asking for money. It means we can wash ourselves of any responsibility to do anything for this man or change the social conditions that may have brought him to the point in life where he is begging for money. We don’t have to change ourselves at all. We simply do not have to do anything.
The message is even more sinister than that: It suggests that it would be bad if we did help him. If so, we would somehow be interfering with his own spiritual development. He needs the satisfaction of a job well done in order to build up his self-confidence, some say. If we help him, we would be robbing him of the opportunity to meet his own needs. We could risk spiritually crippling him.
I’ve heard those arguments before, and I’m sure you have, too.
Like most things in life, the answers are not always so simple. We all know a family member who has managed to meander through life subsisting almost entirely off of handouts. Parents, siblings and neighbors feel sorry for that person and coddle him endlessly. What’s the result? The person ends up spoiled. He is angry and demanding. In a situation like that, it is easy to say that the charity is not helping him but rather only enabling his dependence. It does not create a happy person but rather a miserable, dependent person. We are doing things for him that he could and should do for himself. We end up feeling good about ourselves but doing no good at all.
Pictures like this one are designed to uphold the belief that efforts to help poor people are nothing more than a scam–the poor are poor either by their own choices or their own laziness, nothing more.
I have done a fair bit of charity and outreach work. Those who are taking advantage of the system are a small minority when they exist at all. The people who would benefit from “tough love” are few and far between. Stopping all charity efforts in order to “teach those people a lesson” would be to literally starve the vast majority who genuinely need that help in order to impact the few who would be better off without.
I can also tell you that in 100% of cases, if someone is poor and asking for help, they certainly need something. They may not need money or a handout, but they need something.
The Gospels call us to compassion. From the Greek, “compassion” literally means “to walk with.” In order to follow the Gospel call of compassion, we actually have to walk with people–not judge them from a distance. Then and only then we will be in a position to have the courage to decide if we are actually enabling their happiness or enabling their problems. Even then, any decision like that must be met with incredible trepidation, but at least we would have some basis for making that very serious decision to withhold charity from a person asking for it. Usually, it is best not to make judgments on a person at all, but in reality there are times when helping someone out can pull you into an unhealthy, draining codependent relationship, and you have to set a boundary and know when to opt out in those cases. You can’t possibly know that from looking at a picture about two men you know nothing about.
People who have strict opinions about refusing charity to the poor, refusing asylum to immigrants and refugees and refusing mercy to the imprisoned are almost always people who have very little direct experience with these people and the details of their lives. Walk with people, and get to know their lives and how they arrived at their present condition.
The Facebook page Kissing Fish quoted the following brilliant response to this picture:
Traci Schloss Brown, September 18
I’ve been waiting to comment on this picture that has been shared with the intent being humorous and probably spurred by some underlying frustration. Today is the day to serve up a little reality. Here are my questions for the Walmart guy:
1) Will you hire him if he doesn’t pass a background check or has committed a felony?
2) Will you provide him clothes to work in and when those get dirty will you help him get them washed or do you think that first paycheck will pay for an apartment, utilities, appliances, and laundry detergent?
3) Will you immediately pay for any healthcare including mental healthcare he needs? With medications?
4) Will you keep him as an employee if he has an exacerbation of PTSD, anxiety, schizophrenia, or anything else while at work?
5) Will you have someone watch his only earthly possessions while he is working so no one steals them?
6) Will you provide childcare or transportation or a bed for a good night’s sleep or food to sustain him while he works? (I could go on…)
Maybe the answers are “yes.” If so, kudos to you and I will be bringing a large number of friends to apply for every opening you have. If not, hmmmm…. the “just get a freaking job” argument is not so easy to quip, is it? Many of those who are homeless do work or want to work. Many can’t. It is truly not a simple fix. Judging them helps in no way at all! Some homeless hold signs… One of the reasons is because people don’t talk to them. (I am fully aware there are bogus people out there plying on sympathies who hold signs and don’t have legitimate needs…. I actually don’t advocate for giving cash to those “flying signs.”) My point is, “just get a damn job” is not simple. Please take some time to understand some of the most devastating underlying issues. These are people with feelings and worth. Please treat them like it!!
It is also worth adding that many Wal-Mart employees require public assistance to supplement their income. Wal-Mart may have available jobs, but those jobs do not provide for a living, even with full-time hours. It’s a sad day indeed when it’s better to be on the street begging than working at America’s largest employer.
NOTE: According to this website, the picture is a fake and the local affiliate of Wal-Mart does not know who the man is holding the “Now Hiring” sign.
What does it say when people have to fabricate a fake picture in order to prove a point?
Visit Frank Lesko’s website The Traveling Ecumenist
READ ON ...
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Embracing Diversity [A Prayer]
Mark Sandlin
Good and gracious God,
Create in us a more willing spirit,
ready to embrace all people
particularly those shunned by others.Good and gracious God,
We come before you today
lifting up those who,
because they are far too frequently
seen as different,
are far too frequently
treated differently.
We pray for immigrants in any nation.
We pray for those living on the streets.
We pray for the socially awkward
and for the terminally shy.
We pray for those who struggle
with weight issues
and those who can’t put the bottle down.
We pray for those who have physical challenges,
for those whose mental processes
work differently than most,
for those who have speech impediments,
for those who have twitches and ticks,
who have thick accents,
strong ethnic features,
and those who don’t realize
how difficult their directness
can be for others.
We pray for those
who think “normal”
means
“just like me.”
We pray for the child who doesn’t
“fit in”
and for the adult who’s lived a lifetime
of being constantly bullied
because they were brave enough
to be who they were created to be
even when they didn’t
“fit in”
as a child.
Remind us
that even the simplest forms
of bullying, marginalizing,
and setting people apart
simply because we see them
as “different”
places us further away from your love.
Create in us a more willing spirit,
ready to embrace all people
particularly those shunned by others.
And through each of us
help us created a more loving world
where diversity thrives and is celebrated.
Amen.
READ ON ...
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Good and gracious God,
Create in us a more willing spirit,
ready to embrace all people
particularly those shunned by others.Good and gracious God,
We come before you today
lifting up those who,
because they are far too frequently
seen as different,
are far too frequently
treated differently.
We pray for immigrants in any nation.
We pray for those living on the streets.
We pray for the socially awkward
and for the terminally shy.
We pray for those who struggle
with weight issues
and those who can’t put the bottle down.
We pray for those who have physical challenges,
for those whose mental processes
work differently than most,
for those who have speech impediments,
for those who have twitches and ticks,
who have thick accents,
strong ethnic features,
and those who don’t realize
how difficult their directness
can be for others.
We pray for those
who think “normal”
means
“just like me.”
We pray for the child who doesn’t
“fit in”
and for the adult who’s lived a lifetime
of being constantly bullied
because they were brave enough
to be who they were created to be
even when they didn’t
“fit in”
as a child.
Remind us
that even the simplest forms
of bullying, marginalizing,
and setting people apart
simply because we see them
as “different”
places us further away from your love.
Create in us a more willing spirit,
ready to embrace all people
particularly those shunned by others.
And through each of us
help us created a more loving world
where diversity thrives and is celebrated.
Amen.
READ ON ...
-------
The Women’s March on Washington highlighted old and new tensions
Irene Monroe
The nagging question many women of color who did and didn’t attend marches want to know is where was this same energy and white sisterhood going to the polls in November?The number of people who took to the streets for Women’s March on Washington in D.C. and its sister marches across the country and the globe far exceeded the expectations of local and national organizers.
In a sea of pink cat-eared “pussyhats” nearly 5 million people from all seven continents carried placards that read “Make America Sane Again,” “Men of Quality do not FEAR Equality,” “Viva La Vulva” and “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept” to highlight a few, showed a counter -inauguration to the nation’s newly elected president’s vision for the country and world.
What was also on display at the marches was a resurgence of feminism that was multi-generational, highlighting an amalgam of issues- abortion, equal pay, immigration rights, environmental protection, transgender rights, police brutality, to name a few- that might possibly be the beginnings of its fourth wave called “intersectional feminism, ” embraced by both women and men.
Unlike previous women’s marches and waves of feminism that had primarily been an intentionally exclusive women’s country clubs that spoke to Betty Friedan’s feminine mystique of upper-crust “pumps and pearls” wearing white women, this march was intentional in bringing various women and their voices and concerns to the organizing table.
Tamika Mallory, one of the D.C. organizers and African American, told Joy Reid of MSNBC the morning of the D.C march that by devising an intersectional policy platform centering the voices of women of color “you set the agenda or you become an agenda item.”
However, with women of color voices and concerns as an organizing principle which asked white women “to listen more and talk less” and check their white privilege at the proverbial door, at the marches there was neither a consensus nor solidarity among the white sisterhood majority with that objective.
“Can’t we rise above the sniping about ‘privilege,’ ‘white feminism,’ ‘intersectionality,’ and hierarchies of grievance in the face of Trump and the dangers he poses to the American and international liberal world order and women everywhere?” Emma-Kate Symons wrote in her op-ed piece “Agenda for Women’s March has been hijacked by organizers bent on highlighting women’s differences” for Women in the World in Association with The New York Times.
Fearing that once again a white sisterhood would exploited not only our suffering to legitimate their cause but also our black and brown faces for photo-op moments where we are seen and not heard or if heard but not taken seriously, mixed feelings erupted among women of color about attending the D.C. and sister marches.
In Jamilah Lemieux’s op-ed “Why I’m Skipping The Women’s March on Washington” in Colorlines wrote “Much of the post-election news cycle was dominated by White folks wringing their hands: How could this happen? Why did it happen? There was lots of weeping and wailing from women who could get the answers to those questions by simply asking their relatives, friends and partners who put Trump in power… And just what would this “million” women be coming together to march about—their mothers, sisters, homegirls and friends who elected Trump in the first place?”
The nagging question many women of color who did and didn’t attend marches want to know is where was this same energy and white sisterhood going to the polls in November?
53 percent of white women voters cast their ballots for Trump whereas 94 percent of black women, in particular, cast theirs for Hillary.
Many women of color did indeed attend the marches. Angela Peoples went to the march in D.C. wearing a Trump-like red hat that read “Stop Killing Black People” and carried a sign that read “White Women Voted for Trump.”
However, it must be noted that there is a difference between marching for everyone’s civil rights versus marching because white women now recognize a diminishment of their white privilege.
For example, white women who voted for Trump were also at the D.C. March. Many of these women shared with me they voted for him for economic reasons. And while many of them didn’t mind Trump cutting Obamacare, they were both woke and upset to learn that the Affordable Care Act, which they now receive but will be repealed, was the official name for Obamacare.
The Boston March turned out a record number of nearly 200,000. But a white female friend of mine troubled by the complexion of the march sent me an email stating the following:
“Maybe you can answer this question for me. There was a lack of Blacks and People of Color at “The March”… WHY? What can be done to motivate more to “come out”? Am I naive?”
While I can’t speak for all black people I can say that a lot of African American men and women didn’t show up for sister marches in predominately white towns and cities, in spite of the marches’ internecine tensions, where the practice of “Stop and Frisk” is overwhelmingly acted upon people of color.
However, it’s these sort of questions that help forge change in building a stronger sisterhood and a safer world.
READ ON ...
-------
The nagging question many women of color who did and didn’t attend marches want to know is where was this same energy and white sisterhood going to the polls in November?The number of people who took to the streets for Women’s March on Washington in D.C. and its sister marches across the country and the globe far exceeded the expectations of local and national organizers.
In a sea of pink cat-eared “pussyhats” nearly 5 million people from all seven continents carried placards that read “Make America Sane Again,” “Men of Quality do not FEAR Equality,” “Viva La Vulva” and “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept” to highlight a few, showed a counter -inauguration to the nation’s newly elected president’s vision for the country and world.
What was also on display at the marches was a resurgence of feminism that was multi-generational, highlighting an amalgam of issues- abortion, equal pay, immigration rights, environmental protection, transgender rights, police brutality, to name a few- that might possibly be the beginnings of its fourth wave called “intersectional feminism, ” embraced by both women and men.
Unlike previous women’s marches and waves of feminism that had primarily been an intentionally exclusive women’s country clubs that spoke to Betty Friedan’s feminine mystique of upper-crust “pumps and pearls” wearing white women, this march was intentional in bringing various women and their voices and concerns to the organizing table.
Tamika Mallory, one of the D.C. organizers and African American, told Joy Reid of MSNBC the morning of the D.C march that by devising an intersectional policy platform centering the voices of women of color “you set the agenda or you become an agenda item.”
However, with women of color voices and concerns as an organizing principle which asked white women “to listen more and talk less” and check their white privilege at the proverbial door, at the marches there was neither a consensus nor solidarity among the white sisterhood majority with that objective.
“Can’t we rise above the sniping about ‘privilege,’ ‘white feminism,’ ‘intersectionality,’ and hierarchies of grievance in the face of Trump and the dangers he poses to the American and international liberal world order and women everywhere?” Emma-Kate Symons wrote in her op-ed piece “Agenda for Women’s March has been hijacked by organizers bent on highlighting women’s differences” for Women in the World in Association with The New York Times.
Fearing that once again a white sisterhood would exploited not only our suffering to legitimate their cause but also our black and brown faces for photo-op moments where we are seen and not heard or if heard but not taken seriously, mixed feelings erupted among women of color about attending the D.C. and sister marches.
In Jamilah Lemieux’s op-ed “Why I’m Skipping The Women’s March on Washington” in Colorlines wrote “Much of the post-election news cycle was dominated by White folks wringing their hands: How could this happen? Why did it happen? There was lots of weeping and wailing from women who could get the answers to those questions by simply asking their relatives, friends and partners who put Trump in power… And just what would this “million” women be coming together to march about—their mothers, sisters, homegirls and friends who elected Trump in the first place?”
The nagging question many women of color who did and didn’t attend marches want to know is where was this same energy and white sisterhood going to the polls in November?
53 percent of white women voters cast their ballots for Trump whereas 94 percent of black women, in particular, cast theirs for Hillary.
Many women of color did indeed attend the marches. Angela Peoples went to the march in D.C. wearing a Trump-like red hat that read “Stop Killing Black People” and carried a sign that read “White Women Voted for Trump.”
However, it must be noted that there is a difference between marching for everyone’s civil rights versus marching because white women now recognize a diminishment of their white privilege.
For example, white women who voted for Trump were also at the D.C. March. Many of these women shared with me they voted for him for economic reasons. And while many of them didn’t mind Trump cutting Obamacare, they were both woke and upset to learn that the Affordable Care Act, which they now receive but will be repealed, was the official name for Obamacare.
The Boston March turned out a record number of nearly 200,000. But a white female friend of mine troubled by the complexion of the march sent me an email stating the following:
“Maybe you can answer this question for me. There was a lack of Blacks and People of Color at “The March”… WHY? What can be done to motivate more to “come out”? Am I naive?”
While I can’t speak for all black people I can say that a lot of African American men and women didn’t show up for sister marches in predominately white towns and cities, in spite of the marches’ internecine tensions, where the practice of “Stop and Frisk” is overwhelmingly acted upon people of color.
However, it’s these sort of questions that help forge change in building a stronger sisterhood and a safer world.
READ ON ...
-------
Liturgy Selection
Seeking God
Humans are relentless in their efforts to understand God. It’s the engagement with the question that is unrelenting. “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.”
Humans are relentless in their efforts to understand God. It’s the engagement with the question that is unrelenting. “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.”
Humans are relentless in their efforts to understand God. We can change the language (some say “God” is an over-used word), we can find new metaphors (poets are especially good at this), we can duck the conversation altogether by claiming God does not exist (a common strategy for something that is — almost by definition — not graspable). It’s the engagement with the question that is unrelenting. “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.” And seek we do.
The God Experience
That we “exist” as human beings is certain as a fact
Created/evolved through a lengthy process — others say an act
A Creator-God often viewed as the prime reason for “being”
A mystery question that seeks an answer, one that’s not misleading
That we “exist” as human beings is certain as a fact
Created/evolved through a lengthy process — others say an act
A Creator-God often viewed as the prime reason for “being”
A mystery question that seeks an answer, one that’s not misleading
The God Experience by Randall WehlerThat we “exist” as human beings is certain as a fact
Created/evolved through a lengthy process — others say an act
A Creator-God often viewed as the prime reason for “being”
A mystery question that seeks an answer, one that’s not misleading
Matter becoming conscious and wanting to contemplate all of this
Pondering also a Creator’s spirit energy where nothing went amiss
For some the passioned search for God has long-ago been ended
They live out rather shallow lives as if spiritually unattended
Many religions have formed as various pathways to the Creator
All reaching out to give the “answers,” not deferred to later
Fundamental Christians may see the Bible as literally “all is true”
Casting a suspicious eye on Christians with a more figurative view
Some see Jesus with genealogical eyes as the “true and only” Son
Or Jesus as God’s Earthly human messenger, our spirits to be One
Some view the Bible as the literal and inerrant word of God
As if handed down from the sky with the Creator’s authoritative nod
Or more as a literary recording of the writers’ experiences of the time
Written to capture their personal relationship with a Creator so divine
The Bible as history glimpses some of Jesus’ special teachings
Oral history viewing his life and ways as spiritually so reaching
To love God and one another, spoken as the highest-order command
To live life fully as human — and humanely — there’s few other demands
Who was this man, born to the Earth, the scholars have debated
Just take from it what you can, God will never be deflated
A God who’s seen as much more than a supreme theistic being
Spirit flows eternally through all time and space — my personal believingread more
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There Is a 'Presence'
There is a presence here and now;
A presence with us all;
A presence when we’re trav’ling high;
A presence when we fall.
There Is a 'Presence'
There is a presence here and now;
A presence with us all;
A presence when we’re trav’ling high;
A presence when we fall.
There Is a ‘Presence’Tune: St. Bernard or other 8.6.8.6 by George Stuart
There is a presence here and now;
A presence with us all;
A presence when we’re trav’ling high;
A presence when we fall.
We know not whence it comes or how;
It pacifies our soul;
In grief or gloom this presence brings
A calm that can console.
When we reject ‘the self’ within
And guilt can reign supreme
This presence is a source of love
To comfort and redeem.
When joy comes by to cheer our path
This presence fills our heart;
When wonderment, thanksgiving swells
Despair and woe depart.
There is a presence here and now;
A presence we can feel;
It re-creates, renews, restores;
So present and so real.[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 at george.stuart@exemail.com.au]read more
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Musing on God
God is all without being any thing
while being the all in every thing.
God is the perhaps at the edge
of every moment of choosing.
Musing on God
God is all without being any thing
while being the all in every thing.
God is the perhaps at the edge
of every moment of choosing.
Musing on God by James BurkloGod is all without being any thing
while being the all in every thing.
God is the perhaps at the edge
of every moment of choosing.
God does nothing
but nothing does
without God.
God is the freedom to do
and the urge to act.
God does not exist
because God is existence.
God is change,
God is flow,
God is relationship:
In, with, and through.
God is love:
silently attracting,
never compelling.
God does not have power
because God is power.
God is the unforced force
coursing through all events.
God is the potential
for transformation
in all relationships.
To be God’s friend
is to pay attention
to the flow in all things…
even those that seem to stay still.
It is to savor what is behind and within
all appearances, events, relations.
It is to feel the allure of what could be,
latent in the wonder of what is.read more
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Events and Updates
The Three Secrets of Aging:
A New Vision of Conscious
Online eCourse February 8th - Dr. JOHN ROBINSON suggests that the final stage of life offers us new opportunities: An INITIATION into an entirely new stage of life, a TRANSFORMATION of self and consciousness, and a REVELATION of a new – and sacred – world right where we are, with the possibility of a Divine Human.
The Three Secrets of Aging: A New Vision of Conscious
READ ON ...
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Click here to go to website/sign up for email list
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Click on Amazon Smile and choose ProgressiveChristianity.org as your charity - when you shop Amazon donates .05%.
The Three Secrets of Aging:
A New Vision of Conscious
Online eCourse February 8th - Dr. JOHN ROBINSON suggests that the final stage of life offers us new opportunities: An INITIATION into an entirely new stage of life, a TRANSFORMATION of self and consciousness, and a REVELATION of a new – and sacred – world right where we are, with the possibility of a Divine Human.
The Three Secrets of Aging: A New Vision of Conscious
Dr. JOHN ROBINSON suggests that the final stage of life offers us new opportunities: An INITIATION into an entirely new stage of life, a TRANSFORMATION of self and consciousness, and a REVELATION of a new – and sacred – world right where we are, with the possibility of a Divine Human.
The panel consists of Honored Sages BOB ATCHLEY and CAROL ORSBORN, who will respond to the presentation and bring reflections of their own.
Click Here for More Information and to Register for Event
Click Here to Review/Purchase the book: The Three Secrets of Aging.
Images
The panel consists of Honored Sages BOB ATCHLEY and CAROL ORSBORN, who will respond to the presentation and bring reflections of their own.
Click Here for More Information and to Register for Event
Click Here to Review/Purchase the book: The Three Secrets of Aging.
Images
Start:February 8, 2017 5:00 PM
End:
February 8, 2017 7:00 PM
Location:
Online eCourse
Register:
$9.00
Contact:
Al Rider, Webinar-Tech Coordinator Sage-ing International alanjrider@gmail.com
Organization:
Sage-ing International
Website:
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=thw4kyfab&oeidk=a07edmv72cp9a8b88f5
Email:
alanjrider@gmail.com
Telephone:
765-350-0030
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