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Christian Faith and Political Governance of Economy
Pat Conover
This sermon takes on an issue that has been identified in several polls as the highest issue of concern for both Republican and Democrat voters: the economic situation in the United States. ... Countable trust is the theologicalaspect of money.
Christian Faith and Political Governance of Economy by Pat Conover
Sermon for Seekers Church for November 6th, 2016
The Call Statement of Seekers says that citizenship matters. This is a sermon concerning Christian faith grounding for citizenship.
This is the worst presidential campaign I remember and my memory goes back to cheering for Adlai Stevenson against Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.
I’m glad Paul, Keith, and Peter are hosting the School of Christian Living Class that provide opportunities to process our feelings and concerns. And yes, I think there is a lot to worry about however the results turn out.
I didn’t like the Lectionary readings for today. The best I can say for them is that they reflect anxiety, fear, and lust for revenge. The theme that God will provide a Judgment Day against all enemies both foreign and domestic seems to mirror a lot of the feelings going around in this election. I take the readings as a problem statement for this sermon.
This sermon takes on an issue that has been identified in several polls as the highest issue of concern for both Republican and Democrat voters: the economic situation in the United States. You can think of this sermon as an unlikely model for the debates and ads the candidates might have had.
In the United States, disparities between the wealth and income of the rich and everyone else has been increasing sharply since the election of Ronald Reagan and the advent of trickle-down economics. For the prior 70 years the disparity between rich and poor had been decreasing. Wealth has flooded uphill, proving that wealth does not obey the law of gravity.
Between 2009-2012 the income of the top one percent increased by 36.8% and the income of the rest of us slightly decreased. The result is that the top 160,000 families own as much wealth as the poorest 145,000.000 families. Alternatively said, many people with full time employment earn less than a livable wage income. And wealth is about ten times more concentrated than income.
I agree with Joseph Stiglitz in his 2012 book who makes the case that people had begun to be aware that they were experiencing “hard times” because the interlocking economic and political system is unfair, is rigged against them. Stiglitz pointed to a poll that found that two-thirds of Americans supported the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
Stiglitz went on to write that “U. S. President Barack Obama had promised ‘change you can believe in,’ but he subsequently delivered economic policies that, to many Americans seemed like more of the same.”
My observation of current polling is that two-thirds of eligible voters claim a party identification, with Democrats holding a slight advantage. More importantly, for assessing the opportunity for dramatic positive change, many party affiliated voters were critical of their own party. I’m in that position myself.
With this in mind, and remembering that one-third of the electorate belongs to no party, it seems fair to me to identify this historical moment as chaotic, confused, and distressing. The good news is that such chaos and dissatisfaction signals an opportunity, even a likelihood, for significant change. Will the change be for good or for ill? Will we help shape the change? How can our Christian faith help?
I understand Trump’s core response to this moment to be that elites have rigged the system against the people and the answer is to blow everything up and let him fix it. I understand Clinton’s core response to be like Obama’s: more benefits to ease the pain for those who have been hurt by the system. I think we in Seekers already know some important things about about how to fix the system. Maybe this sermon can at least help Seekers to have better conversations.
People in the United States have elected politicians to change the fundamental economics of the United States many times, and we can do it again. We the people didn’t start the class warfare, as charged by defenders of dominance for the most wealthy. They started it with Ronald Reagan, and they are still winning it big time.
Andrew Jackson broke up the big banks. After the War Between the States, slavery was abolished and we won the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution with its citizenship clause, due process clause, and equal protection clause. We won the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. Women won the right to vote in 1919 and then gained numerous economic rights. We won a wide array of economic and political reforms including the Fair Labor Standards Act and Social Security under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In my lifetime we have won the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Why not take another big step in 2020?
It seems to me that in radically different ways the core messages of both candidates end up supporting the upper echelons of the upper class. Trump wants to change the tax system to further advantage the most wealthy and do away with regulatory restraints that hinder the upper class from further plundering consumers, workers, and the environment. Clinton wants to engage in federal charity for lower income people by modestly increasing taxes on the most wealthy. Redistributing a small amount of wealth to slightly improve circumstances is not much better than nothing, considering the scale of current wealth strangulation by gigantic banks and gigantic corporations.
I understand that many ultra-wealthy people want to change the system. I understand that only two percent of Republicans earn over $250,000 a year. I understand that a lot of different things need to be fixed and we can’t do them all at once. We can stop Delaware and off-shore banks from supporting money laundering and hiding wealth from taxation. We can follow up on our success in the Jubilee movement a few years ago by stopping vulture capitalists. They bought near worthless debts owed by low income nations and use various various mechanisms to try to force payment in full. The debt was forgiven in principle because the money was given to corrupt local elites who took the money, spent some of it on themselves, hid a lot of it, and then walked out leaving those the loans were meant to help with no benefits and all the debt. At home we can block usury level interest rates for credit card debts, pay day loans, and title loans.
At this point it’s typical for liberal Christians to properly appeal to prophetic voices in Hebrew Scripture and Christian Testament to rally people to political protest. You know that story line already. I agree, but we need a lot more than protest, blaming, and critique. We can do more than play the blame game. We can do more than pragmatic issue by issue change. We can support a different understanding of what is real about economics and offer a comprehensive vision for reforming economics in the United States and around the world.
Countable trust is the theological aspect of money. (Hold up $20 bill) Money is a symbol constructed for social, political, economic, and legal purposes. I trust that my twenty dollar bill can be exchanged for twenty dollars worth of food the next time I go shopping at Trader Joe’s. The economic aspect of this physical twenty dollar bill is general purchasing power that I trust will be recognized by sellers of goods and services. Taken together, the reality of economics is general trust.
Money is a symbol constructed for social, political, economic, and legal purposes. There is a lot of important policy about creating the money supply in a nation, but I’m not going to comment on that, mostly because I’m not competent to comment on that.
Understanding the reality of economics as general trust opens up conversation concerning capitalism. The United States has already recognized this reality, in part, by adding a lot of enforceable regulations to free market capitalism to get to what is commonly called mixed capitalism. Good enforceable regulation creates trust which unbridled competition destroys. Recognizing economics as the organization of general trust, based on good rather than bad regulation, makes room for claiming that progressive Christian faith can and should help shape the vision of broad integrated reform.
John Stuart Mill made the classic statement of Economic Man theory as a basis for free market capitalism. He called Economic Man theory “an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who inevitably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which they can be obtained.” In so doing Mill opened the door for those who claim unlimited competition would be good for everyone and then defending unlimited concentration of wealth and political power as somehow good for everyone.
The big problems with Economic Man theory are that it is inaccurate, simplistic, and binds rationality to an idol rather than to what matters most. Mills did not recognize that free market capitalism is an ideology that functions as a religion.
Economic Man theory is inaccurate because it misunderstands how people actually behave. Behavioral economics is well developed and emphasizes actual economic behavior, cognitive biases, irrationality (as defined by efforts to maximize profit),and human cooperation. Here are a couple of questions to help us understand and appreciate what is at stake.
Do you shop at the closest store, the cleanest store, or the store that has the one thing you really want and just buy the rest of your list for the sake of convenience? Are you willing to take the time, and to spend a lot for transportation, to compare prices at three stores before you decide what to buy at each store? That would amount to six trips rather than one?
And there is no shopping if only one grocery store is reasonably available.
Do you buy locally because you care about the carbon footprint of blueberries flown in from Peru?
Is it irrational that I occasionally travel to North Carolina to buy from a particular family of potters because I like the family, the store, the head potter and the sales people; because I like the story of an unbroken family lineage that has kept alive traditional Colonial pottery to be bought by the masses; because I like their policy of allowing visitors to explore all the pottery, because I remember admiring the efficiency of a mule powered clay grinder.
Economic Man theory is simplistic because it defines a money based economic transaction as buying and selling between two people. This is a vision of buying and selling occurring in one isolated bubble after another. In fact, such singular moments bring together multiple sequences of activity involving multiple actors in multiple circumstances. This reductionistic focus can’t see the reality of money as general trust because it defines economic transactions as merely bartering between two parties. It is also simplistic because it is blind to the complexity of behavioral economics.
In addition, the first assumption of free market capitalism defies the isolation vision of Economic Man theory. In a market there has to be more than one seller if the buyer is to have any freedom other than to buy or not buy. Having options is at the heart of the principle of competition which is supposedly the source of what makes market capitalism a good thing.
The core contradiction within free market capitalism is that unbridled competition destroys markets. Maximizing profit via competition is a direct path to winning and losing. Winners have the resources to maximize competitive advantage and can and do use it to restrict and then destroy competitors. This path to monopolization leaves buyer with no options and thus there is no market. Such idolatry is exposed for what it is when economists scream, “Don’t you dare impose your pious morality on my freedom and right to become as wealthy as possible.” I smile and reply, “That’s why I don’t trust you.”
Furthermore, sellers do a lot more than providing goods and services to maximize profits. They avoid taxation to improve profits and influence politicians to reduce taxation. They negotiate with politicians to get all sorts of benefits paid for with taxpayer income and with special deals to avoid taxation. Sellers minimize labor costs which diminishes market because people have less money to spend, another fundamental contradiction within free market capitalism. Sellers commonly escape from the costs to society of environmental degradation. Sellers escape from health care costs of workers who are injured and sickened because of unsafe and exploitive working conditions.
Escaping the full costs of providing goods and services advantages the seller, and secondarily the buyer, and injures everyone else who are forgotten by focusing on the moment of sale between a buyer and seller.
More importantly, Economic Man theory asserts how a buyer should behave. By asserting that supposedly rational buyers and sellers should focus only on price for wanted goods and services is economic secularism which treats altruism as a bogus philosophical motive, and treats any intrusion of religion as irrational hogwash. Providing quality goods and services at low prices is a good thing but it isn’t the only good thing, isn’t the best thing. The best thing is to do our selling and buying in support of good lives for ourselves and everyone else.
In elections to come, might we lift up the the values of cooperation rather than competition as a basis for economics. Can we cooperate as workers? Can we cooperate as consumers? Can we cooperate as voters and citizens? Will we invest in political movements that emphasize fairness for all rather than dominance for some?
Trickle up economics begins with appreciating that improved wages, benefits, and working conditions builds market capacity. Similarly, taxation supports government spending which also increases market capacity. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not burdens on the economy but rather distribute income which increases markets and is especially valuable in sustaining spending during recessions.
Rebuilding trust of all kinds is going to be a big challenge after this election. It is going to require conversations that bridge all kinds of fault lines. It is going to require politeness, tolerance, and a whole lot more to get to mutual understanding and appreciation, recognition of common interests, and a whole lot more friendship. Its going to require forgiving others and asking forgiveness for ourselves. Reciprocal trust is a preferable landmark than profit for reconstructing economic relationships in the United States and around the world.
When laws are more fair, there will be more respect for laws. When politics are more transparent, there will be more trust of politicians. When we move to one person one vote, rather than one dollar one vote, we will trust democracy more. When we move beyond individual spirituality to appreciating, embracing, and embodying the spiritual values that enhance relationships, we will redirect our culture toward win-win economics rather than win-lose economics.
Seekers already embraces two prominent standards that would be good for the United States and the world, not just for us. Stewardship is a concept that recognizes that we hold our personal, family, and church wealth as an economic trust.
Calling is at the heart of our community focus: individual callings, mission group callings, and the Call Statement that amounts to our church constitution. Callings are callings to ministries. Ministries support living into and out of meaningful engagements of our lives in diverse sectors of our community, our neighborhood, our work places, our city, our nation, our world. Ministry is about giving our lives away as expressions of our caring, as expressions of our hope for solidarity and not just tolerance across boundary across boundary across boundary. For Seekers, calling is more than maximizing profits or expanding the church budget, is more important than insuring that services are available for members.
Stewardship and calling place profit in a larger context. Stewardship and calling are two landmarks for guiding paths to here and now salvation in the economic-political-legal-social context of living in the United States, of living in the world. I look out at you and smile because I know how much we help each other economically, sometimes with money, and often without.
We can do better as a nation as well.
Pat Conover
Seekers Church, Washington D.C.
READ ON ...
How to Stay Connected and Inspired in America
This sermon takes on an issue that has been identified in several polls as the highest issue of concern for both Republican and Democrat voters: the economic situation in the United States. ... Countable trust is the theologicalaspect of money.
Christian Faith and Political Governance of Economy by Pat Conover
Sermon for Seekers Church for November 6th, 2016
The Call Statement of Seekers says that citizenship matters. This is a sermon concerning Christian faith grounding for citizenship.
This is the worst presidential campaign I remember and my memory goes back to cheering for Adlai Stevenson against Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.
I’m glad Paul, Keith, and Peter are hosting the School of Christian Living Class that provide opportunities to process our feelings and concerns. And yes, I think there is a lot to worry about however the results turn out.
I didn’t like the Lectionary readings for today. The best I can say for them is that they reflect anxiety, fear, and lust for revenge. The theme that God will provide a Judgment Day against all enemies both foreign and domestic seems to mirror a lot of the feelings going around in this election. I take the readings as a problem statement for this sermon.
This sermon takes on an issue that has been identified in several polls as the highest issue of concern for both Republican and Democrat voters: the economic situation in the United States. You can think of this sermon as an unlikely model for the debates and ads the candidates might have had.
In the United States, disparities between the wealth and income of the rich and everyone else has been increasing sharply since the election of Ronald Reagan and the advent of trickle-down economics. For the prior 70 years the disparity between rich and poor had been decreasing. Wealth has flooded uphill, proving that wealth does not obey the law of gravity.
Between 2009-2012 the income of the top one percent increased by 36.8% and the income of the rest of us slightly decreased. The result is that the top 160,000 families own as much wealth as the poorest 145,000.000 families. Alternatively said, many people with full time employment earn less than a livable wage income. And wealth is about ten times more concentrated than income.
I agree with Joseph Stiglitz in his 2012 book who makes the case that people had begun to be aware that they were experiencing “hard times” because the interlocking economic and political system is unfair, is rigged against them. Stiglitz pointed to a poll that found that two-thirds of Americans supported the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
Stiglitz went on to write that “U. S. President Barack Obama had promised ‘change you can believe in,’ but he subsequently delivered economic policies that, to many Americans seemed like more of the same.”
My observation of current polling is that two-thirds of eligible voters claim a party identification, with Democrats holding a slight advantage. More importantly, for assessing the opportunity for dramatic positive change, many party affiliated voters were critical of their own party. I’m in that position myself.
With this in mind, and remembering that one-third of the electorate belongs to no party, it seems fair to me to identify this historical moment as chaotic, confused, and distressing. The good news is that such chaos and dissatisfaction signals an opportunity, even a likelihood, for significant change. Will the change be for good or for ill? Will we help shape the change? How can our Christian faith help?
I understand Trump’s core response to this moment to be that elites have rigged the system against the people and the answer is to blow everything up and let him fix it. I understand Clinton’s core response to be like Obama’s: more benefits to ease the pain for those who have been hurt by the system. I think we in Seekers already know some important things about about how to fix the system. Maybe this sermon can at least help Seekers to have better conversations.
People in the United States have elected politicians to change the fundamental economics of the United States many times, and we can do it again. We the people didn’t start the class warfare, as charged by defenders of dominance for the most wealthy. They started it with Ronald Reagan, and they are still winning it big time.
Andrew Jackson broke up the big banks. After the War Between the States, slavery was abolished and we won the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution with its citizenship clause, due process clause, and equal protection clause. We won the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. Women won the right to vote in 1919 and then gained numerous economic rights. We won a wide array of economic and political reforms including the Fair Labor Standards Act and Social Security under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In my lifetime we have won the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Why not take another big step in 2020?
It seems to me that in radically different ways the core messages of both candidates end up supporting the upper echelons of the upper class. Trump wants to change the tax system to further advantage the most wealthy and do away with regulatory restraints that hinder the upper class from further plundering consumers, workers, and the environment. Clinton wants to engage in federal charity for lower income people by modestly increasing taxes on the most wealthy. Redistributing a small amount of wealth to slightly improve circumstances is not much better than nothing, considering the scale of current wealth strangulation by gigantic banks and gigantic corporations.
I understand that many ultra-wealthy people want to change the system. I understand that only two percent of Republicans earn over $250,000 a year. I understand that a lot of different things need to be fixed and we can’t do them all at once. We can stop Delaware and off-shore banks from supporting money laundering and hiding wealth from taxation. We can follow up on our success in the Jubilee movement a few years ago by stopping vulture capitalists. They bought near worthless debts owed by low income nations and use various various mechanisms to try to force payment in full. The debt was forgiven in principle because the money was given to corrupt local elites who took the money, spent some of it on themselves, hid a lot of it, and then walked out leaving those the loans were meant to help with no benefits and all the debt. At home we can block usury level interest rates for credit card debts, pay day loans, and title loans.
At this point it’s typical for liberal Christians to properly appeal to prophetic voices in Hebrew Scripture and Christian Testament to rally people to political protest. You know that story line already. I agree, but we need a lot more than protest, blaming, and critique. We can do more than play the blame game. We can do more than pragmatic issue by issue change. We can support a different understanding of what is real about economics and offer a comprehensive vision for reforming economics in the United States and around the world.
Countable trust is the theological aspect of money. (Hold up $20 bill) Money is a symbol constructed for social, political, economic, and legal purposes. I trust that my twenty dollar bill can be exchanged for twenty dollars worth of food the next time I go shopping at Trader Joe’s. The economic aspect of this physical twenty dollar bill is general purchasing power that I trust will be recognized by sellers of goods and services. Taken together, the reality of economics is general trust.
Money is a symbol constructed for social, political, economic, and legal purposes. There is a lot of important policy about creating the money supply in a nation, but I’m not going to comment on that, mostly because I’m not competent to comment on that.
Understanding the reality of economics as general trust opens up conversation concerning capitalism. The United States has already recognized this reality, in part, by adding a lot of enforceable regulations to free market capitalism to get to what is commonly called mixed capitalism. Good enforceable regulation creates trust which unbridled competition destroys. Recognizing economics as the organization of general trust, based on good rather than bad regulation, makes room for claiming that progressive Christian faith can and should help shape the vision of broad integrated reform.
John Stuart Mill made the classic statement of Economic Man theory as a basis for free market capitalism. He called Economic Man theory “an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who inevitably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which they can be obtained.” In so doing Mill opened the door for those who claim unlimited competition would be good for everyone and then defending unlimited concentration of wealth and political power as somehow good for everyone.
The big problems with Economic Man theory are that it is inaccurate, simplistic, and binds rationality to an idol rather than to what matters most. Mills did not recognize that free market capitalism is an ideology that functions as a religion.
Economic Man theory is inaccurate because it misunderstands how people actually behave. Behavioral economics is well developed and emphasizes actual economic behavior, cognitive biases, irrationality (as defined by efforts to maximize profit),and human cooperation. Here are a couple of questions to help us understand and appreciate what is at stake.
Do you shop at the closest store, the cleanest store, or the store that has the one thing you really want and just buy the rest of your list for the sake of convenience? Are you willing to take the time, and to spend a lot for transportation, to compare prices at three stores before you decide what to buy at each store? That would amount to six trips rather than one?
And there is no shopping if only one grocery store is reasonably available.
Do you buy locally because you care about the carbon footprint of blueberries flown in from Peru?
Is it irrational that I occasionally travel to North Carolina to buy from a particular family of potters because I like the family, the store, the head potter and the sales people; because I like the story of an unbroken family lineage that has kept alive traditional Colonial pottery to be bought by the masses; because I like their policy of allowing visitors to explore all the pottery, because I remember admiring the efficiency of a mule powered clay grinder.
Economic Man theory is simplistic because it defines a money based economic transaction as buying and selling between two people. This is a vision of buying and selling occurring in one isolated bubble after another. In fact, such singular moments bring together multiple sequences of activity involving multiple actors in multiple circumstances. This reductionistic focus can’t see the reality of money as general trust because it defines economic transactions as merely bartering between two parties. It is also simplistic because it is blind to the complexity of behavioral economics.
In addition, the first assumption of free market capitalism defies the isolation vision of Economic Man theory. In a market there has to be more than one seller if the buyer is to have any freedom other than to buy or not buy. Having options is at the heart of the principle of competition which is supposedly the source of what makes market capitalism a good thing.
The core contradiction within free market capitalism is that unbridled competition destroys markets. Maximizing profit via competition is a direct path to winning and losing. Winners have the resources to maximize competitive advantage and can and do use it to restrict and then destroy competitors. This path to monopolization leaves buyer with no options and thus there is no market. Such idolatry is exposed for what it is when economists scream, “Don’t you dare impose your pious morality on my freedom and right to become as wealthy as possible.” I smile and reply, “That’s why I don’t trust you.”
Furthermore, sellers do a lot more than providing goods and services to maximize profits. They avoid taxation to improve profits and influence politicians to reduce taxation. They negotiate with politicians to get all sorts of benefits paid for with taxpayer income and with special deals to avoid taxation. Sellers minimize labor costs which diminishes market because people have less money to spend, another fundamental contradiction within free market capitalism. Sellers commonly escape from the costs to society of environmental degradation. Sellers escape from health care costs of workers who are injured and sickened because of unsafe and exploitive working conditions.
Escaping the full costs of providing goods and services advantages the seller, and secondarily the buyer, and injures everyone else who are forgotten by focusing on the moment of sale between a buyer and seller.
More importantly, Economic Man theory asserts how a buyer should behave. By asserting that supposedly rational buyers and sellers should focus only on price for wanted goods and services is economic secularism which treats altruism as a bogus philosophical motive, and treats any intrusion of religion as irrational hogwash. Providing quality goods and services at low prices is a good thing but it isn’t the only good thing, isn’t the best thing. The best thing is to do our selling and buying in support of good lives for ourselves and everyone else.
In elections to come, might we lift up the the values of cooperation rather than competition as a basis for economics. Can we cooperate as workers? Can we cooperate as consumers? Can we cooperate as voters and citizens? Will we invest in political movements that emphasize fairness for all rather than dominance for some?
Trickle up economics begins with appreciating that improved wages, benefits, and working conditions builds market capacity. Similarly, taxation supports government spending which also increases market capacity. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not burdens on the economy but rather distribute income which increases markets and is especially valuable in sustaining spending during recessions.
Rebuilding trust of all kinds is going to be a big challenge after this election. It is going to require conversations that bridge all kinds of fault lines. It is going to require politeness, tolerance, and a whole lot more to get to mutual understanding and appreciation, recognition of common interests, and a whole lot more friendship. Its going to require forgiving others and asking forgiveness for ourselves. Reciprocal trust is a preferable landmark than profit for reconstructing economic relationships in the United States and around the world.
When laws are more fair, there will be more respect for laws. When politics are more transparent, there will be more trust of politicians. When we move to one person one vote, rather than one dollar one vote, we will trust democracy more. When we move beyond individual spirituality to appreciating, embracing, and embodying the spiritual values that enhance relationships, we will redirect our culture toward win-win economics rather than win-lose economics.
Seekers already embraces two prominent standards that would be good for the United States and the world, not just for us. Stewardship is a concept that recognizes that we hold our personal, family, and church wealth as an economic trust.
Calling is at the heart of our community focus: individual callings, mission group callings, and the Call Statement that amounts to our church constitution. Callings are callings to ministries. Ministries support living into and out of meaningful engagements of our lives in diverse sectors of our community, our neighborhood, our work places, our city, our nation, our world. Ministry is about giving our lives away as expressions of our caring, as expressions of our hope for solidarity and not just tolerance across boundary across boundary across boundary. For Seekers, calling is more than maximizing profits or expanding the church budget, is more important than insuring that services are available for members.
Stewardship and calling place profit in a larger context. Stewardship and calling are two landmarks for guiding paths to here and now salvation in the economic-political-legal-social context of living in the United States, of living in the world. I look out at you and smile because I know how much we help each other economically, sometimes with money, and often without.
We can do better as a nation as well.
Pat Conover
Seekers Church, Washington D.C.
READ ON ...
How to Stay Connected and Inspired in America
Joran Oppelt
We are all holding pieces of the map, and unless we begin to work together, we will never escape the labyrinth of separation, prejudice and fear. ...We must not fear one another. We must face our fear head on. Our fear, after all, is the doorway to our freedom.
How to Stay Connected and Inspired in America by Joran Oppelt
WHAT NEXT?
Some of us recently witnessed (or participated in) the largest public demonstration our country has ever seen.
The Women’s March on Washington on Saturday, January 21, 2017 was a historic day, seeing 2.5 million people around the world take to the streets to support causes such as women’s reproductive rights, climate change and criminal justice reform.
Now that everyone has returned home, hung their pussy hats in the hallway, and attempted to return to some sense of normal family/work/life balance, the question has been asked, “What next?”
And for those who were on the losing side of the recent presidential election, a more pressing question, “How did we get here?” — a time in our history when a highly-narcissistic television star and his white nationalist advisor now sit in the White House issuing executive orders that some have called “separatist,” “xenophobic” and even “unconstitutional.” A time when even scientists, librarians and journalists have taken to marching in the streets in the name of “truth.”
According to most sociologists and psychologists (including Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, Erik Erickson, James Fowler, Jean Gebser) we all move through a series of developmental stages that carry us from egocentrism (a concern for our own self and survival), to ethnocentrism (a concern for our own family, tribe, team or nationality) to worldcentrism (a concern for all living beings).
According to philosopher Ken Wilber, 60% of the world is at an ethnocentric stage or lower. This means that they have not yet developed modern, postmodern and systemic ways of thinking and seeing the world.
Those at the worldcentric stage (if their concern really is for all beings) must claim some responsibility for the people whose values and beliefs vary so dramatically from their own. The more we distance ourselves from our neighbor, and the more we steer clear of the places they gather, the more we estrange ourselves. The more we unfriend people who disagree with us, or our point of view, on social media the more we create gaps, bubbles, echo chambers and blind spots where we would otherwise have the opportunity to connect, lean in, or engage our neighbor in meaningful and transformative dialogue.
As Sean Blanda wrote in 2016, “Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that we’d rather be smug assholes than consider alternative views. It signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like them, than try to understand those who are not.”
Obviously, there are exceptions. No one should suffer needlessly where bullying, psychological abuse and physical harm are concerned, but turning away from people because they hold a different worldview is something we need less of.
We are all holding pieces of the map, and unless we begin to work together, we will never escape the labyrinth of separation, prejudice and fear.
Those at ethnocentric (“mythic” and “conformist”) stages of development may eventually begin to experience some discomfort with the loyalty to the self-imposed rules and laws of their worldview. They may begin to question their religious doctrine, or cultural assumptions or scientific dogma and seek out other perspectives.
They may only half-heartedly agree with the politics of their neighbor or with the actions or policies put in place by the government. They may be complacent with the institutional and cultural racism they find rampant in this country, but intuitively at odds with the personal or subtle racism they see online or in public. They may disagree with putting another person’s religion to a test out of loyalty to the language found in our Constitution. Those people, when in doubt, will turn inward to their own values, their own religious beliefs, or to a community of their peers for social reinforcement.
If we have disconnected from them, they will be seeking a bridge where there is none. We will be island communities unable to communicate with or even orient ourselves to the population and culture of our own neighbors. We will have abandoned them in the name of “community-building” or unfriended them in the name of self-preservation.
Our primary objective, the tallest order, should be to meet these “fundamentalists” where they are, or go to where they meet. We should provide opportunities for connection and dialogue on a daily basis. And we should stop excluding them from our own events, social programs and marketing messages. We need to be able to disagree with their worldview while still being able to integrate it into the larger whole.
Put differently, how might you explain to someone who collects music on vinyl albums or compact discs that the artifacts they possess, the totems imbued with sacred art and language, the equipment and devices on which they play, and indeed, the ecosystem and industry that produces and manufactures those artifacts are outdated and part of the past? How do you convince them that the future is not in “ownership” of pieces of plastic, but in “access” to an invisible cloud?
The short answer is, you don’t.
There will always be small, loyal holdouts for the previous product or paradigm, but the majority, the center of gravity and the tipping point is determined by closeness (proximity) and convenience (access).
In any relationship, we need to stay close and remain open and accessible. We need to be able to turn toward one another in times of crisis, instead of away. And, we need to consistently and conveniently show each other the map (what we know), or pieces of the map (what we think we know), providing all parties a glimpse of a larger, more integrative, territory.
Once we have a picture of that territory, we must begin the actual work of tending to the land.
WHAT IS YOUR ELECTIVE?
Doing that work means choosing something that we are passionate about, or a piece of a larger problem, and working diligently on it toward a solution. In Judaism, this is referred to as tikkun olam, and means to heal or repair the world.
The time is now to choose your “elective” (your elected initiative or objective). What might you do in your spare time? For those who may not think they have any spare time, I challenge you to look again. For some, it’s the time they spend on their device fogging up the window to other people’s lives.
Ask yourself, “What is of ultimate concern to me?”
What is your passion or purpose in life?
What will be your legacy? When you die, what will people say that you did? It could be something small — “He loved his family.” It could be big — “She climbed Mount Everest. Twice.”
What keeps you up at night?
What pisses you off or turns you on?
You may be frustrated that your gender, sexual preference or ethnicity can’t easily be checked off on a job or loan application. Your family may not technically have a “head of household.” You may celebrate different holidays or follow the lunar cycle. You may be an atheist, or another religious minority. You may be sickened by the amount of garbage you drag to the dumpster every week. You may be disgusted by the way you see people being treated.
We all can take on a section of the puzzle and find a way to do the work. Some prefer to start with the edge pieces and some work from the middle, sorting by color or texture.
I have a friend named Bruce who works and advocates for the homeless. Homelessness is the tiny little piece of a broader, more complex problem that Bruce has chosen to take up in his hands and personally attempt to fix. He is a tireless advocate for homeless rights and can be found marching for them, or literally feeding them, every week.
I have a friend named Jennifer who has chosen to call her senators every day. She has a script and an auto-dialer that prompts her phone through various mailboxes and extensions, allowing her to maximize her time and prioritize the ever-changing issues and causes that are important to her from week to week. She makes time for this chore every morning, just as she would wash the dishes or fold the laundry. She could probably do this while folding her laundry.
Then there’s my new friend, Don, who works in the Transition Movement. The organic farmers he works with were distraught that they couldn’t join the others as they marched in the streets in record-breaking numbers. He had to convince them that the work they were doing — turning the soil and watering the seeds and pulling food from the ground — was just as important.
This is true not just in community gardens. Those that maintain the infrastructure that’s already in place are every bit as important as the ones on the front lines and the bleeding edge.
Sometimes I wish I cared for something, argued for (or against) something, fought for something as hard as Bruce, Jennifer and Don do. My passion is religious literacy and interfaith dialogue. While some people may be starving from ignorance, pluralism is not as vital in most communities as, say, hunger or poverty. It may be that pluralism isn’t a cause, but rather a stage of development – a worldview. It may be an eventuality, once we fix the other problems dividing us.
So if you, like me, can’t decide (or need some help deciding) on which cause to throw your valuable time and energy behind, here are some issues that need attention and might interest you:
* Homelessness
* Education / Literacy
* Reproductive rights
* Racism
* Sexism
* The Wage Gap / The Minimum Wage
* Xenophobia
* Immigration / Refugees
* Indigenous or Native American Rights
* The Environment / Pollution
* Natural Resources (Water, Forests, etc.)
* Alternative Energy (Solar, Wind, etc.)
* Crime
* Hunger
* Poverty
* Interfaith Literacy (Muslim or Jewish advocacy)
* Medical Research (AIDS, Cancer, MS, etc.)
* Healthcare / Insurance Reform
* Child Slavery
* Sex Trafficking
* Animal Rights / Abuse
* Mentoring (Minorities, Youth)
* Social Justice Reform (capital punishment, mandatory minimum sentences, etc.)
* Big Pharma (synthetic drugs, medication, regulation)
* Food / Farming
* Agriculture / Sustainability
* Non-Violent Communication / De-escalation Training
* Bullying / Teen Suicide
Maybe one of these issues calls to you. Maybe one (or two) of these causes already inspires you to get up in the morning. Maybe you’re thinking about switching causes. That’s OK, too.
No one person can tackle every problem. And not one of these problems can be solved without an entire community of people and a strategy. This means that all of us must convene and place all of our pieces of the puzzle on the table for everyone to see. It’s even OK if you decide to pocket one of the pieces and gloat as you slowly drop the final piece into place. (We’ve all done that, right?)
And another thing is for sure, we must not give up. We must not allow ourselves to become fatigued. We need to hold our elected officials feet to the fire. And that means staying motivated, staying educated, and staying mobilized.
It may mean marching in the street every week. It may mean writing e-mails, letters and postcards. It may mean calling and leaving a voicemail for a box that’s still already full. But we must remain vigilant, rested and focused on our self care.
We must lean forward, stay engaged and involved in the democratic process, and encourage our neighbors to do the same — regardless of worldview, party or ideology.
We must talk to our neighbors. Even the crazy ones. And, definitely the ones that are angry or that aren’t having a nice day. Your smile, or your support, might be what turns that day around. It might be what saves them.
We must not “resist,” we must meet, engage, reflect and understand. And, keep voting.
We must not fear one another. We must face our fear head on. Our fear, after all, is the doorway to our freedom.
###
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. What are you passionate about? What electives did I forget?
READ ON ...
Salt of the Earth
We are all holding pieces of the map, and unless we begin to work together, we will never escape the labyrinth of separation, prejudice and fear. ...We must not fear one another. We must face our fear head on. Our fear, after all, is the doorway to our freedom.
How to Stay Connected and Inspired in America by Joran Oppelt
WHAT NEXT?
Some of us recently witnessed (or participated in) the largest public demonstration our country has ever seen.
The Women’s March on Washington on Saturday, January 21, 2017 was a historic day, seeing 2.5 million people around the world take to the streets to support causes such as women’s reproductive rights, climate change and criminal justice reform.
Now that everyone has returned home, hung their pussy hats in the hallway, and attempted to return to some sense of normal family/work/life balance, the question has been asked, “What next?”
And for those who were on the losing side of the recent presidential election, a more pressing question, “How did we get here?” — a time in our history when a highly-narcissistic television star and his white nationalist advisor now sit in the White House issuing executive orders that some have called “separatist,” “xenophobic” and even “unconstitutional.” A time when even scientists, librarians and journalists have taken to marching in the streets in the name of “truth.”
According to most sociologists and psychologists (including Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, Erik Erickson, James Fowler, Jean Gebser) we all move through a series of developmental stages that carry us from egocentrism (a concern for our own self and survival), to ethnocentrism (a concern for our own family, tribe, team or nationality) to worldcentrism (a concern for all living beings).
According to philosopher Ken Wilber, 60% of the world is at an ethnocentric stage or lower. This means that they have not yet developed modern, postmodern and systemic ways of thinking and seeing the world.
Those at the worldcentric stage (if their concern really is for all beings) must claim some responsibility for the people whose values and beliefs vary so dramatically from their own. The more we distance ourselves from our neighbor, and the more we steer clear of the places they gather, the more we estrange ourselves. The more we unfriend people who disagree with us, or our point of view, on social media the more we create gaps, bubbles, echo chambers and blind spots where we would otherwise have the opportunity to connect, lean in, or engage our neighbor in meaningful and transformative dialogue.
As Sean Blanda wrote in 2016, “Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that we’d rather be smug assholes than consider alternative views. It signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like them, than try to understand those who are not.”
Obviously, there are exceptions. No one should suffer needlessly where bullying, psychological abuse and physical harm are concerned, but turning away from people because they hold a different worldview is something we need less of.
We are all holding pieces of the map, and unless we begin to work together, we will never escape the labyrinth of separation, prejudice and fear.
Those at ethnocentric (“mythic” and “conformist”) stages of development may eventually begin to experience some discomfort with the loyalty to the self-imposed rules and laws of their worldview. They may begin to question their religious doctrine, or cultural assumptions or scientific dogma and seek out other perspectives.
They may only half-heartedly agree with the politics of their neighbor or with the actions or policies put in place by the government. They may be complacent with the institutional and cultural racism they find rampant in this country, but intuitively at odds with the personal or subtle racism they see online or in public. They may disagree with putting another person’s religion to a test out of loyalty to the language found in our Constitution. Those people, when in doubt, will turn inward to their own values, their own religious beliefs, or to a community of their peers for social reinforcement.
If we have disconnected from them, they will be seeking a bridge where there is none. We will be island communities unable to communicate with or even orient ourselves to the population and culture of our own neighbors. We will have abandoned them in the name of “community-building” or unfriended them in the name of self-preservation.
Our primary objective, the tallest order, should be to meet these “fundamentalists” where they are, or go to where they meet. We should provide opportunities for connection and dialogue on a daily basis. And we should stop excluding them from our own events, social programs and marketing messages. We need to be able to disagree with their worldview while still being able to integrate it into the larger whole.
Put differently, how might you explain to someone who collects music on vinyl albums or compact discs that the artifacts they possess, the totems imbued with sacred art and language, the equipment and devices on which they play, and indeed, the ecosystem and industry that produces and manufactures those artifacts are outdated and part of the past? How do you convince them that the future is not in “ownership” of pieces of plastic, but in “access” to an invisible cloud?
The short answer is, you don’t.
There will always be small, loyal holdouts for the previous product or paradigm, but the majority, the center of gravity and the tipping point is determined by closeness (proximity) and convenience (access).
In any relationship, we need to stay close and remain open and accessible. We need to be able to turn toward one another in times of crisis, instead of away. And, we need to consistently and conveniently show each other the map (what we know), or pieces of the map (what we think we know), providing all parties a glimpse of a larger, more integrative, territory.
Once we have a picture of that territory, we must begin the actual work of tending to the land.
WHAT IS YOUR ELECTIVE?
Doing that work means choosing something that we are passionate about, or a piece of a larger problem, and working diligently on it toward a solution. In Judaism, this is referred to as tikkun olam, and means to heal or repair the world.
The time is now to choose your “elective” (your elected initiative or objective). What might you do in your spare time? For those who may not think they have any spare time, I challenge you to look again. For some, it’s the time they spend on their device fogging up the window to other people’s lives.
Ask yourself, “What is of ultimate concern to me?”
What is your passion or purpose in life?
What will be your legacy? When you die, what will people say that you did? It could be something small — “He loved his family.” It could be big — “She climbed Mount Everest. Twice.”
What keeps you up at night?
What pisses you off or turns you on?
You may be frustrated that your gender, sexual preference or ethnicity can’t easily be checked off on a job or loan application. Your family may not technically have a “head of household.” You may celebrate different holidays or follow the lunar cycle. You may be an atheist, or another religious minority. You may be sickened by the amount of garbage you drag to the dumpster every week. You may be disgusted by the way you see people being treated.
We all can take on a section of the puzzle and find a way to do the work. Some prefer to start with the edge pieces and some work from the middle, sorting by color or texture.
I have a friend named Bruce who works and advocates for the homeless. Homelessness is the tiny little piece of a broader, more complex problem that Bruce has chosen to take up in his hands and personally attempt to fix. He is a tireless advocate for homeless rights and can be found marching for them, or literally feeding them, every week.
I have a friend named Jennifer who has chosen to call her senators every day. She has a script and an auto-dialer that prompts her phone through various mailboxes and extensions, allowing her to maximize her time and prioritize the ever-changing issues and causes that are important to her from week to week. She makes time for this chore every morning, just as she would wash the dishes or fold the laundry. She could probably do this while folding her laundry.
Then there’s my new friend, Don, who works in the Transition Movement. The organic farmers he works with were distraught that they couldn’t join the others as they marched in the streets in record-breaking numbers. He had to convince them that the work they were doing — turning the soil and watering the seeds and pulling food from the ground — was just as important.
This is true not just in community gardens. Those that maintain the infrastructure that’s already in place are every bit as important as the ones on the front lines and the bleeding edge.
Sometimes I wish I cared for something, argued for (or against) something, fought for something as hard as Bruce, Jennifer and Don do. My passion is religious literacy and interfaith dialogue. While some people may be starving from ignorance, pluralism is not as vital in most communities as, say, hunger or poverty. It may be that pluralism isn’t a cause, but rather a stage of development – a worldview. It may be an eventuality, once we fix the other problems dividing us.
So if you, like me, can’t decide (or need some help deciding) on which cause to throw your valuable time and energy behind, here are some issues that need attention and might interest you:
* Homelessness
* Education / Literacy
* Reproductive rights
* Racism
* Sexism
* The Wage Gap / The Minimum Wage
* Xenophobia
* Immigration / Refugees
* Indigenous or Native American Rights
* The Environment / Pollution
* Natural Resources (Water, Forests, etc.)
* Alternative Energy (Solar, Wind, etc.)
* Crime
* Hunger
* Poverty
* Interfaith Literacy (Muslim or Jewish advocacy)
* Medical Research (AIDS, Cancer, MS, etc.)
* Healthcare / Insurance Reform
* Child Slavery
* Sex Trafficking
* Animal Rights / Abuse
* Mentoring (Minorities, Youth)
* Social Justice Reform (capital punishment, mandatory minimum sentences, etc.)
* Big Pharma (synthetic drugs, medication, regulation)
* Food / Farming
* Agriculture / Sustainability
* Non-Violent Communication / De-escalation Training
* Bullying / Teen Suicide
Maybe one of these issues calls to you. Maybe one (or two) of these causes already inspires you to get up in the morning. Maybe you’re thinking about switching causes. That’s OK, too.
No one person can tackle every problem. And not one of these problems can be solved without an entire community of people and a strategy. This means that all of us must convene and place all of our pieces of the puzzle on the table for everyone to see. It’s even OK if you decide to pocket one of the pieces and gloat as you slowly drop the final piece into place. (We’ve all done that, right?)
And another thing is for sure, we must not give up. We must not allow ourselves to become fatigued. We need to hold our elected officials feet to the fire. And that means staying motivated, staying educated, and staying mobilized.
It may mean marching in the street every week. It may mean writing e-mails, letters and postcards. It may mean calling and leaving a voicemail for a box that’s still already full. But we must remain vigilant, rested and focused on our self care.
We must lean forward, stay engaged and involved in the democratic process, and encourage our neighbors to do the same — regardless of worldview, party or ideology.
We must talk to our neighbors. Even the crazy ones. And, definitely the ones that are angry or that aren’t having a nice day. Your smile, or your support, might be what turns that day around. It might be what saves them.
We must not “resist,” we must meet, engage, reflect and understand. And, keep voting.
We must not fear one another. We must face our fear head on. Our fear, after all, is the doorway to our freedom.
###
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. What are you passionate about? What electives did I forget?
READ ON ...
James Asparro
Salt of the Earth brings to light social issues such as addictions, gun violence, wealth distribution, and gender equality. Villains scheme to bring heroes down. Who will win?
Salt of the Earth by James Asparro
Ben Dawson, widowed pastor, takes a bullet from an assault rifle triggered by an anti-abortion protester at a women’s health clinic; further unanticipated events land him in the national spotlight. Colorful characters, including a brilliant and glamorous woman, are influenced by Ben’s local progressive church, at which people of all spiritualties find purpose and meaning. Woven into the story is romance, adventure on the high seas, and a sensational dog.
Salt of the Earth brings to light social issues such as addictions, gun violence, wealth distribution, and gender equality. Villains scheme to bring heroes down. Who will win?
“Salt of the earth is a thought-provoking narrative, which brings to light numerous issues plaguing our society and today’s mainline Christian communities. Set primarily in the Pacific Northwest, with frequent mention of Portland’s cultural landmarks, the vibrant character’s personalities seize the reader. The novel evoked my emotional responses including: compassion for hardworking nurse Megan, married to workaholic and sex addicted navy officer Brandon; loathing for the arrogant Palmer who thinks expensive diamonds can buy love; and disgust for closeminded Ray Fish with his prejudice judgments. I cheered for Pastor Ben Dawson as he fell in love with Alex, applauded executive assistant Teresa for her astute business sense and honored Navy Chaplain Bill Wilson for his caring insights. . . and I loved Lizzie the dog! This is a well-researched, fast paced story, which will leave you asking for a sequel.” ~Amazon Reviewer, Noakark2
“I am so glad I read this book! It had the perfect combination of thoughtful, serious themes and laugh-out-loud moments that came just when you needed them. There were characters I loved, characters I loved to hate and also characters that were mixed and complex. Redemption and forgiveness are central themes of this book, which gave it a hopeful quality that was truly inspiring. I teared up at the story of the lonely, elderly veteran who bonded with a sweet dog; I laughed at loud at the rom-com-style misunderstandings; I sat on the edge of my seat at the suspense and military action; and I choked up at the story of a very real family torn apart by absence and addiction. I’ve never been particularly religious, but this book showed a side of religion that was more than repeating prayers and believing in the impossible. It showed a diverse group of people who all came together to accept one another and love one another. A truly inspiring read, I couldn’t help but think what an engaging movie this book would make. Serious but uplifting, politically and socially aware, it didn’t fall into the typical traps of gender and racial stereotypes that you find all over the place. Well-researched accounts of the Navy and the Philippines grip the reader and take your emotions on a roller-coaster. It is a very real story about people who deal with very real issues. Couldn’t recommend it enough!”~Amazon Reviewer
Read a Huffington Post Review here
About the Author
The Rev. Dr. James Asparro is a retired U.S. Navy chaplain who deployed in the Western Pacific several times during the cold war, and served as a navy chaplain with the fleet Marines. He was stationed stateside, in Iceland, and on sea duty in the Mediterranean. He has worked as a chaplain at Oregon State Hospital, Linfield College, and in the VA Health Care System. He was the pastor of an American Baptist church for four years before going on active duty with the navy. He holds degrees from University of Portland, Yale Divinity School, and Claremont School of Theology. He lives in a suburb of Portland with his family.
Visit the website here: www.jamesasparro.com
Click HERE to purchase this book in all formats.
purchase for $28.99
READ ON ...
Liturgy Selection
Salt of the Earth brings to light social issues such as addictions, gun violence, wealth distribution, and gender equality. Villains scheme to bring heroes down. Who will win?
Ben Dawson, widowed pastor, takes a bullet from an assault rifle triggered by an anti-abortion protester at a women’s health clinic; further unanticipated events land him in the national spotlight. Colorful characters, including a brilliant and glamorous woman, are influenced by Ben’s local progressive church, at which people of all spiritualties find purpose and meaning. Woven into the story is romance, adventure on the high seas, and a sensational dog.
“Salt of the earth is a thought-provoking narrative, which brings to light numerous issues plaguing our society and today’s mainline Christian communities. Set primarily in the Pacific Northwest, with frequent mention of Portland’s cultural landmarks, the vibrant character’s personalities seize the reader. The novel evoked my emotional responses including: compassion for hardworking nurse Megan, married to workaholic and sex addicted navy officer Brandon; loathing for the arrogant Palmer who thinks expensive diamonds can buy love; and disgust for closeminded Ray Fish with his prejudice judgments. I cheered for Pastor Ben Dawson as he fell in love with Alex, applauded executive assistant Teresa for her astute business sense and honored Navy Chaplain Bill Wilson for his caring insights. . . and I loved Lizzie the dog! This is a well-researched, fast paced story, which will leave you asking for a sequel.” ~Amazon Reviewer, Noakark2
“I am so glad I read this book! It had the perfect combination of thoughtful, serious themes and laugh-out-loud moments that came just when you needed them. There were characters I loved, characters I loved to hate and also characters that were mixed and complex. Redemption and forgiveness are central themes of this book, which gave it a hopeful quality that was truly inspiring. I teared up at the story of the lonely, elderly veteran who bonded with a sweet dog; I laughed at loud at the rom-com-style misunderstandings; I sat on the edge of my seat at the suspense and military action; and I choked up at the story of a very real family torn apart by absence and addiction. I’ve never been particularly religious, but this book showed a side of religion that was more than repeating prayers and believing in the impossible. It showed a diverse group of people who all came together to accept one another and love one another. A truly inspiring read, I couldn’t help but think what an engaging movie this book would make. Serious but uplifting, politically and socially aware, it didn’t fall into the typical traps of gender and racial stereotypes that you find all over the place. Well-researched accounts of the Navy and the Philippines grip the reader and take your emotions on a roller-coaster. It is a very real story about people who deal with very real issues. Couldn’t recommend it enough!”~Amazon Reviewer
Read a Huffington Post Review here
About the Author
The Rev. Dr. James Asparro is a retired U.S. Navy chaplain who deployed in the Western Pacific several times during the cold war, and served as a navy chaplain with the fleet Marines. He was stationed stateside, in Iceland, and on sea duty in the Mediterranean. He has worked as a chaplain at Oregon State Hospital, Linfield College, and in the VA Health Care System. He was the pastor of an American Baptist church for four years before going on active duty with the navy. He holds degrees from University of Portland, Yale Divinity School, and Claremont School of Theology. He lives in a suburb of Portland with his family.
Visit the website here: www.jamesasparro.com
Click HERE to purchase this book in all formats.
purchase for $28.99
READ ON ...
Liturgy Selection
Lent, Week 1
Lent gives us the opportunity to delve into aspects of life we would often prefer to ignore: suffering, injustice, death. There is never new life without the death of what went before, so we begin our Lenten journey with gratitude.
Lent, Week 1
Week of February 26, 2017Lent starts Ash Wednesday, March 1st this year. But part of the power of ritual, no matter the nuances of one’s theological stance, is the reaffirmation, over and over, of the cycles of life and our participation in them. Lent gives us the opportunity to delve into aspects of life we would often prefer to ignore: suffering, injustice, death. There is never new life without the death of what went before, so we begin our Lenten journey with gratitude.
Reflection on Jeremiah 31
It is tattooed on our hearts
Etched on the walls
at the core of our being
There is no escaping the reality
And yet we still ignore it
Reflection on Jeremiah 31 by Roger Lynn
It is tattooed on our hearts
Etched on the walls
at the core of our being
There is no escaping the reality
And yet we still ignore it
or deny it
or simply forget
‘I will be your God,
and you will be my people.’
When will we begin to live
like the covenant people that we are?
Lent gives us the opportunity to delve into aspects of life we would often prefer to ignore: suffering, injustice, death. There is never new life without the death of what went before, so we begin our Lenten journey with gratitude.
Week of February 26, 2017Lent starts Ash Wednesday, March 1st this year. But part of the power of ritual, no matter the nuances of one’s theological stance, is the reaffirmation, over and over, of the cycles of life and our participation in them. Lent gives us the opportunity to delve into aspects of life we would often prefer to ignore: suffering, injustice, death. There is never new life without the death of what went before, so we begin our Lenten journey with gratitude.
Reflection on Jeremiah 31
It is tattooed on our hearts
Etched on the walls
at the core of our being
There is no escaping the reality
And yet we still ignore it
Reflection on Jeremiah 31 by Roger Lynn
It is tattooed on our hearts
Etched on the walls
at the core of our being
There is no escaping the reality
And yet we still ignore it
or deny it
or simply forget
‘I will be your God,
and you will be my people.’
When will we begin to live
like the covenant people that we are?
The Stations of the Cross and the Beatitudes, Week 1
This guide focuses on the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and on the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which symbolize the events remembered on Good Friday.
The Stations of the Cross and the Beatitudes, Week 1
A Guide to Spiritual Practice for Lent by James Burklo
LENT prepares us to encounter the mystery and power in the stories of the death and resurrection of the Christ. It is the time in the traditional Christian calendar to experience the transformative meanings of the Passion story. This guide focuses on the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and on the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which symbolize the events remembered on Good Friday.
The Beatitudes are recorded in Matthew chapter 5 and a shorter version in Luke chapter 20. The Sermon on the Mount begins with this manifesto of hope and promise. They introduce the heart of Jesus’ teaching to his followers. Jesus’ nine Beatitudes address the suffering which so many of his followers experienced in everyday life in Roman-occupied Israel. Luke’s shorter set of sentences is more focused on tangible poverty and oppression.
The Stations of the Cross are an old Catholic Christian tradition. They mark fourteen stages along the path from Jesus’ condemnation to death until his burial (Luke 23). To this day, many Catholic churches have statues or plaques installed inside their sanctuaries or outside in their gardens, each marking one of the Stations. They are more than a simple rendition of the story found in the gospels. Some of the Stations correspond to actual passages in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ Passion. But others have no corresponding verses in the New Testament. Jesus’ encounter with Veronica, for example, at Station number 6, is based on a legend that developed long after the biblical era. The Stations have always been evocative and interpretive, rather than simple historical representations. They remind us that we have great freedom to read new meanings into Christianity.
This guide invites you to walk with the Beatitudes and the Stations, a few steps at a time, through each of the weeks of Lent. It invites you to join in study, conversation, meditative prayer, artistic creativity, and compassionate action. It can be used for private devotion, for group study and practice, or for integration into study and worship in a church congregation.
This guide presumes that:
1) … the parts of the Passion and Easter stories that appear to be fanciful or supernaturalistic do not need to be taken literally in order for us to experience their extraordinary significance. The myth and poetry in these stories are portals into the realm of the soul. They provide us with essential structures of meaning, and guide us toward higher consciousness and greater compassion. “Just because something didn’t really happen doesn’t mean it isn’t really true!”
2) … the historical context of the Beatitudes and the Passion and Easter stories offers us a useful lens through which to interpret them. The social and political circumstances of Jesus’ time can serve as mirrors for us to reflect on the personal and public moral choices that lie before us today.
3) … the stories and traditions of Lent and Easter are many-layered. They meet us at historical, political, mystical, transpersonal, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic levels. You are invited to explore them all!
Lenten Action:
You are invited, as an individual or as a group, to commit to action for positive social change during Lent. This can take many forms: service to the homeless, working on a campaign, or many other types of charitable and/or advocacy work for the common good, whether as a volunteer or as a professional. It can be an ongoing work of service, or a short-term commitment during the weeks of Lent. (See the “links” at www.beatitudessociety.org for suggestions of organizations in which you can become involved.) Each week, this guide invites you to reflect on your experiences and observations in the course of this work.
Week 1: Ash Wednesday, Feb 13 through Sunday, Feb 17:
Beatitude One: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (The version of this Beatitude in Luke 20: 20 says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”)
Jesus’ opening sentences of his Sermon on the Mount, called the Beatitudes, were and still are words that turn the world upside down. Around him on the Mount were plenty of people who were poor in spirit and in substance, and it was hard for them to see that things ever could be different. Jesus started his teaching with a truly radical premise: the “kingdom of heaven” is going to ennoble those who are lowly in status and condition, and lift up those who are virtuous in spirit. And the “kingdom of God” that Jesus promised as the reward is not just bye-and-bye in the sky, but rather is already “among you” (Luke 17:21). Some may not be able to perceive this emerging kingdom of heaven on earth. “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear,” said Jesus (Matthew 13: 16), in a verse that might also be considered a “Beatitude”.
Jesus’ first Beatitude challenged the prevailing idea about which people were worthy and which were unworthy, which were clean and which were unclean, in first-century Israel. The Jewish ruling class oppressed the common people by brainwashing them to feel badly about being unable to obey a detailed “holiness” code that only wealthy people possibly could afford the time and resources to follow. “…Jesus challenged the connection between righteousness and prosperity made by conventional wisdom, with its corollary that the poor had not lived right and thus were ‘unworthy’ children of Abraham.” (Marcus Borg in “Jesus: A New Vision”, p 136)
In the jarring, paradoxical words of the Beatitudes, Jesus says that those who are poor, either in spirit or in status, will be “blessed” (makarios in the original biblical Greek, meaning “fortunate” or “happy” in the sense of being “a privileged recipient of divine favor”). He declared that this was so, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary surrounding him and his listeners. Still today, the Beatitudes invite us to look beyond the bad news that surrounds us. They invite us to seek out signs of the good news of the kingdom of heaven that is being created by faithful people who take action for compassion and justice.
Station One: Jesus is condemned to death by Pontius Pilate.
Much of traditional Christian theology claims that Jesus was crucified as a blood sacrifice for the sins of humanity. But from an historical perspective, the reason was much different. Jesus was crucified because he was considered a threat to the Roman military and political occupation of Israel.
Israel was occupied by the Roman empire in the time of Jesus. The Romans were threatened by anyone who might lead the people to rise up against them, or any kind of public disturbance that might grow out of Rome’s ability to control it. The native Jewish authorities sought to avoid direct Roman meddling in Jewish affairs as much as possible. Any kind of public disorder might invite the Romans to bypass the Jewish Sanhedrin’s counsel and intervene directly. Jesus upset this delicate power balance by attracting a lot of attention from the crowds who had come from all over Israel to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. Jesus did not directly condemn the Roman occupiers, but he repeatedly and publicly insulted the Jewish ruling class in his defense of the interests of the common people. Pilate himself recognized that Jesus had committed no crime. But he deemed it necessary to have Jesus killed so that public order could be maintained. So he ordered the execution even as he washed his hands of it.
Station Two: The cross is laid upon Jesus.
The Roman guards forced Jesus to carry his cross to Golgotha.
The Romans thought that crucifixion would terrorize people into submission. The Romans thought the cross would “save” them from anyone who would dare to resist them, but it made them ever more enemies. Repeatedly they were caught in quagmires of conflict like the series of rebellions that happened in Israel. One cross wasn’t enough; Jesus was hardly the only Jew who was tortured to death by the Roman occupying army.
The early Christians did something very radical: they turned a symbol of torture and state power into a symbol of personal and social liberation. They turned the Roman’s meaning for the cross inside out and upside down. They made it the symbol of the victory of life over death, love over fear. A few hundred years after Jesus’ death, the Roman empire was history, and the cross, with its Christian meanings, stood above the skylines of the cities the empire had once controlled.
Questions:
What examples of “poverty of spirit” do you see in your own life and those of others?
Have you ever witnessed an example of a person who was “poor in spirit” who “inherited the kingdom”?
How does the Beatitude apply to the condemnation of Jesus? In what ways were each of the characters in the story “poor in spirit”?
What is the difference between the kingdom of Rome and the kingdom of heaven? – today’s global economic and political structure, and the kingdom of heaven?
In the name of freedom, democracy, and prevention of terrorism, which innocent people are being killed today? Is it justified?
Are there ever situations in which innocent people must be killed or harmed in order to serve the greater common good?
Have you ever found it necessary to hurt someone (emotionally or in some other way) because of a situation that otherwise would have caused greater harm to others? Has this ever happened to you?
If you were a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, what reasons would you give for wanting Jesus to be condemned? Are there any of these reasons with which you share some sympathy and understanding? Answer the same for Pontius Pilate.
What did you think would “save” you, but turned out to “crucify” you instead?
What does our society think will “save” it, but turns out to “crucify” it instead?
Is there any way that you can transform the meaning of a burden in your life into a sign of liberation?
Meditation on your Lenten Action:
Where do you find resonance, meaning, and inspiration in these Stations, and in this Beatitude, in the course of your work of service or advocacy so far?
Artistic expression for Week One:
Construct a cross out of images or objects representing whatever it is that “crucifies” you – or impoverishes you or the wider society in which you live, in spirit. What do you wish could save you, but is crucifying you instead? Examples: a cross made out of bottles of alcohol, a cross made out of images of nuclear weapons.
This guide focuses on the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and on the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which symbolize the events remembered on Good Friday.
The Stations of the Cross and the Beatitudes, Week 1
A Guide to Spiritual Practice for Lent by James Burklo
LENT prepares us to encounter the mystery and power in the stories of the death and resurrection of the Christ. It is the time in the traditional Christian calendar to experience the transformative meanings of the Passion story. This guide focuses on the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and on the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which symbolize the events remembered on Good Friday.
The Beatitudes are recorded in Matthew chapter 5 and a shorter version in Luke chapter 20. The Sermon on the Mount begins with this manifesto of hope and promise. They introduce the heart of Jesus’ teaching to his followers. Jesus’ nine Beatitudes address the suffering which so many of his followers experienced in everyday life in Roman-occupied Israel. Luke’s shorter set of sentences is more focused on tangible poverty and oppression.
The Stations of the Cross are an old Catholic Christian tradition. They mark fourteen stages along the path from Jesus’ condemnation to death until his burial (Luke 23). To this day, many Catholic churches have statues or plaques installed inside their sanctuaries or outside in their gardens, each marking one of the Stations. They are more than a simple rendition of the story found in the gospels. Some of the Stations correspond to actual passages in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ Passion. But others have no corresponding verses in the New Testament. Jesus’ encounter with Veronica, for example, at Station number 6, is based on a legend that developed long after the biblical era. The Stations have always been evocative and interpretive, rather than simple historical representations. They remind us that we have great freedom to read new meanings into Christianity.
This guide invites you to walk with the Beatitudes and the Stations, a few steps at a time, through each of the weeks of Lent. It invites you to join in study, conversation, meditative prayer, artistic creativity, and compassionate action. It can be used for private devotion, for group study and practice, or for integration into study and worship in a church congregation.
This guide presumes that:
1) … the parts of the Passion and Easter stories that appear to be fanciful or supernaturalistic do not need to be taken literally in order for us to experience their extraordinary significance. The myth and poetry in these stories are portals into the realm of the soul. They provide us with essential structures of meaning, and guide us toward higher consciousness and greater compassion. “Just because something didn’t really happen doesn’t mean it isn’t really true!”
2) … the historical context of the Beatitudes and the Passion and Easter stories offers us a useful lens through which to interpret them. The social and political circumstances of Jesus’ time can serve as mirrors for us to reflect on the personal and public moral choices that lie before us today.
3) … the stories and traditions of Lent and Easter are many-layered. They meet us at historical, political, mystical, transpersonal, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic levels. You are invited to explore them all!
Lenten Action:
You are invited, as an individual or as a group, to commit to action for positive social change during Lent. This can take many forms: service to the homeless, working on a campaign, or many other types of charitable and/or advocacy work for the common good, whether as a volunteer or as a professional. It can be an ongoing work of service, or a short-term commitment during the weeks of Lent. (See the “links” at www.beatitudessociety.org for suggestions of organizations in which you can become involved.) Each week, this guide invites you to reflect on your experiences and observations in the course of this work.
Week 1: Ash Wednesday, Feb 13 through Sunday, Feb 17:
Beatitude One: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (The version of this Beatitude in Luke 20: 20 says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”)
Jesus’ opening sentences of his Sermon on the Mount, called the Beatitudes, were and still are words that turn the world upside down. Around him on the Mount were plenty of people who were poor in spirit and in substance, and it was hard for them to see that things ever could be different. Jesus started his teaching with a truly radical premise: the “kingdom of heaven” is going to ennoble those who are lowly in status and condition, and lift up those who are virtuous in spirit. And the “kingdom of God” that Jesus promised as the reward is not just bye-and-bye in the sky, but rather is already “among you” (Luke 17:21). Some may not be able to perceive this emerging kingdom of heaven on earth. “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear,” said Jesus (Matthew 13: 16), in a verse that might also be considered a “Beatitude”.
Jesus’ first Beatitude challenged the prevailing idea about which people were worthy and which were unworthy, which were clean and which were unclean, in first-century Israel. The Jewish ruling class oppressed the common people by brainwashing them to feel badly about being unable to obey a detailed “holiness” code that only wealthy people possibly could afford the time and resources to follow. “…Jesus challenged the connection between righteousness and prosperity made by conventional wisdom, with its corollary that the poor had not lived right and thus were ‘unworthy’ children of Abraham.” (Marcus Borg in “Jesus: A New Vision”, p 136)
In the jarring, paradoxical words of the Beatitudes, Jesus says that those who are poor, either in spirit or in status, will be “blessed” (makarios in the original biblical Greek, meaning “fortunate” or “happy” in the sense of being “a privileged recipient of divine favor”). He declared that this was so, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary surrounding him and his listeners. Still today, the Beatitudes invite us to look beyond the bad news that surrounds us. They invite us to seek out signs of the good news of the kingdom of heaven that is being created by faithful people who take action for compassion and justice.
Station One: Jesus is condemned to death by Pontius Pilate.
Much of traditional Christian theology claims that Jesus was crucified as a blood sacrifice for the sins of humanity. But from an historical perspective, the reason was much different. Jesus was crucified because he was considered a threat to the Roman military and political occupation of Israel.
Israel was occupied by the Roman empire in the time of Jesus. The Romans were threatened by anyone who might lead the people to rise up against them, or any kind of public disturbance that might grow out of Rome’s ability to control it. The native Jewish authorities sought to avoid direct Roman meddling in Jewish affairs as much as possible. Any kind of public disorder might invite the Romans to bypass the Jewish Sanhedrin’s counsel and intervene directly. Jesus upset this delicate power balance by attracting a lot of attention from the crowds who had come from all over Israel to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. Jesus did not directly condemn the Roman occupiers, but he repeatedly and publicly insulted the Jewish ruling class in his defense of the interests of the common people. Pilate himself recognized that Jesus had committed no crime. But he deemed it necessary to have Jesus killed so that public order could be maintained. So he ordered the execution even as he washed his hands of it.
Station Two: The cross is laid upon Jesus.
The Roman guards forced Jesus to carry his cross to Golgotha.
The Romans thought that crucifixion would terrorize people into submission. The Romans thought the cross would “save” them from anyone who would dare to resist them, but it made them ever more enemies. Repeatedly they were caught in quagmires of conflict like the series of rebellions that happened in Israel. One cross wasn’t enough; Jesus was hardly the only Jew who was tortured to death by the Roman occupying army.
The early Christians did something very radical: they turned a symbol of torture and state power into a symbol of personal and social liberation. They turned the Roman’s meaning for the cross inside out and upside down. They made it the symbol of the victory of life over death, love over fear. A few hundred years after Jesus’ death, the Roman empire was history, and the cross, with its Christian meanings, stood above the skylines of the cities the empire had once controlled.
Questions:
What examples of “poverty of spirit” do you see in your own life and those of others?
Have you ever witnessed an example of a person who was “poor in spirit” who “inherited the kingdom”?
How does the Beatitude apply to the condemnation of Jesus? In what ways were each of the characters in the story “poor in spirit”?
What is the difference between the kingdom of Rome and the kingdom of heaven? – today’s global economic and political structure, and the kingdom of heaven?
In the name of freedom, democracy, and prevention of terrorism, which innocent people are being killed today? Is it justified?
Are there ever situations in which innocent people must be killed or harmed in order to serve the greater common good?
Have you ever found it necessary to hurt someone (emotionally or in some other way) because of a situation that otherwise would have caused greater harm to others? Has this ever happened to you?
If you were a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, what reasons would you give for wanting Jesus to be condemned? Are there any of these reasons with which you share some sympathy and understanding? Answer the same for Pontius Pilate.
What did you think would “save” you, but turned out to “crucify” you instead?
What does our society think will “save” it, but turns out to “crucify” it instead?
Is there any way that you can transform the meaning of a burden in your life into a sign of liberation?
Meditation on your Lenten Action:
Where do you find resonance, meaning, and inspiration in these Stations, and in this Beatitude, in the course of your work of service or advocacy so far?
Artistic expression for Week One:
Construct a cross out of images or objects representing whatever it is that “crucifies” you – or impoverishes you or the wider society in which you live, in spirit. What do you wish could save you, but is crucifying you instead? Examples: a cross made out of bottles of alcohol, a cross made out of images of nuclear weapons.
Children's Litany for LentChildren ~ This first Sunday of Lent, we give up the idea that we have no voice.
Children’s Litany for Lent by Jennifer Zechlin
First Sunday
Children ~ This first Sunday of Lent, we give up the idea that we have no voice.
We refuse to believe that we are powerless,
that we cannot make a difference in our churches, and neighborhoods, our country and our world.
We give up the idea that our vision of a better tomorrow must wait until we’re older
Or richer or smarter or more holy.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will hear your voices and see your visions. We acknowledge that with God all things are possible and we will help you make a difference by giving you opportunities to serve in your church. We will support your efforts in the community and world. We will enter Lent with you.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Second Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that war will always be a part of our world.
We will not listen to those who lie to us when they say we must go to war to be safe,
In America or Libya or Afghanistan.
We refuse to believe that we must kill in order to bring Democracy and freedom to others.
We give up the idea that violence ever solves anything.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will be honest with you. We will not glorify weapons or violence, or righteous indignation. We will teach you ways of peace and model for you ways of loving our enemies. We will seek out and vote for leaders who, like Christ, are willing to be mediators and peacemakers.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Third Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that we are not responsible for our environment,
That it has always been and will always be.
We will stop taking our Earth for granted and begin to hear her voice.
We give up the idea that worship only happens indoors and behind stained glass.
We will remember that our daily bread comes from God through a living, healthy planet and that we must care for her as she cares for us.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will delight in the moon and the stars, we will look for God in the oceans and hear Spirit’s voice in the winds. We will walk gently, buy and eat locally, and reduce our consumption of all things non-renewable. We will worship among the trees and rocks more often and we will bring you with us. We will see all life as sacred and will join with you in preserving our Earth.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Fourth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that even though we are healthy, sickness does not affect us,
That we do not have a responsibility to act as healers through prayer and touch and action.
We give up the fear of disease, especially the fear that causes us to look away.
We let go of the idea that illnesses like AIDS and Malaria and Dysentery are unavoidable,
Or that they don’t matter because they don’t happen here.
We refuse to believe that healthcare must be for only a few.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will take on the role of healers, however we are best suited to do so. We will fund research to find cures and will support health education in impoverished nations. We will respond swiftly to natural disasters that threaten to bring new diseases to already battered people. And when sickness occurs in our midst we will not fear it. Through it we will pray and we will touch, and we will be present for each other.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Fifth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that poverty is something normal for some people in some places.
We will not tolerate poverty in our world,
Or the though that the poor don’t matter.
We will walk away from seeing poverty as some else’s problem
And we give up the idea that people who don’t have enough stuff or the right stuff are any less worthy of hope.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will work with you to end poverty. We will put our own wealth to work, bringing hope and change to those who need it most. We will ask that you watch us as we feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and care for widows and orphans in all corners of the world. We will stop pretending that the poor are not among us and we will help you find ways to respond compassionately to this very real problem.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Sixth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that hatred is ever ok,
That people can be treated differently because they are a different color or speak a different language or live on the other side of a border
We will not allow unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people, transgendered people, women, or anyone else.
We dream of a world where all people, in all places, of all faiths can work together.
We give up the idea that hatred, bigotry, and bullying should ever be associated with God.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will fight against injustice for you and with you. We will elect leaders who will help you reach your dreams. We will not harbor hate in our own lives and we will speak out any time we hear intolerance, knowing that to remain silent is not an act of love. We will work with you to rid the world of all those very things that Jesus was willing to die for.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.© Jennifer Hawley-Zechlin 2010
Redlands UCC, Redlands CA
Children’s Litany for Lent by Jennifer Zechlin
First Sunday
Children ~ This first Sunday of Lent, we give up the idea that we have no voice.
We refuse to believe that we are powerless,
that we cannot make a difference in our churches, and neighborhoods, our country and our world.
We give up the idea that our vision of a better tomorrow must wait until we’re older
Or richer or smarter or more holy.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will hear your voices and see your visions. We acknowledge that with God all things are possible and we will help you make a difference by giving you opportunities to serve in your church. We will support your efforts in the community and world. We will enter Lent with you.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Second Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that war will always be a part of our world.
We will not listen to those who lie to us when they say we must go to war to be safe,
In America or Libya or Afghanistan.
We refuse to believe that we must kill in order to bring Democracy and freedom to others.
We give up the idea that violence ever solves anything.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will be honest with you. We will not glorify weapons or violence, or righteous indignation. We will teach you ways of peace and model for you ways of loving our enemies. We will seek out and vote for leaders who, like Christ, are willing to be mediators and peacemakers.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Third Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that we are not responsible for our environment,
That it has always been and will always be.
We will stop taking our Earth for granted and begin to hear her voice.
We give up the idea that worship only happens indoors and behind stained glass.
We will remember that our daily bread comes from God through a living, healthy planet and that we must care for her as she cares for us.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will delight in the moon and the stars, we will look for God in the oceans and hear Spirit’s voice in the winds. We will walk gently, buy and eat locally, and reduce our consumption of all things non-renewable. We will worship among the trees and rocks more often and we will bring you with us. We will see all life as sacred and will join with you in preserving our Earth.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Fourth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that even though we are healthy, sickness does not affect us,
That we do not have a responsibility to act as healers through prayer and touch and action.
We give up the fear of disease, especially the fear that causes us to look away.
We let go of the idea that illnesses like AIDS and Malaria and Dysentery are unavoidable,
Or that they don’t matter because they don’t happen here.
We refuse to believe that healthcare must be for only a few.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will take on the role of healers, however we are best suited to do so. We will fund research to find cures and will support health education in impoverished nations. We will respond swiftly to natural disasters that threaten to bring new diseases to already battered people. And when sickness occurs in our midst we will not fear it. Through it we will pray and we will touch, and we will be present for each other.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Fifth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that poverty is something normal for some people in some places.
We will not tolerate poverty in our world,
Or the though that the poor don’t matter.
We will walk away from seeing poverty as some else’s problem
And we give up the idea that people who don’t have enough stuff or the right stuff are any less worthy of hope.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will work with you to end poverty. We will put our own wealth to work, bringing hope and change to those who need it most. We will ask that you watch us as we feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and care for widows and orphans in all corners of the world. We will stop pretending that the poor are not among us and we will help you find ways to respond compassionately to this very real problem.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.
Sixth Sunday
Children ~ We give up the idea that hatred is ever ok,
That people can be treated differently because they are a different color or speak a different language or live on the other side of a border
We will not allow unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people, transgendered people, women, or anyone else.
We dream of a world where all people, in all places, of all faiths can work together.
We give up the idea that hatred, bigotry, and bullying should ever be associated with God.
How will you help us?
Congregation ~ We will fight against injustice for you and with you. We will elect leaders who will help you reach your dreams. We will not harbor hate in our own lives and we will speak out any time we hear intolerance, knowing that to remain silent is not an act of love. We will work with you to rid the world of all those very things that Jesus was willing to die for.
All ~ For the kingdom of God is at hand.© Jennifer Hawley-Zechlin 2010
Redlands UCC, Redlands CA
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Join us as we co-create A New Reformation and an international society dedicated to the work and theology of Bishop Spong.
For those seeking to experience Christianity in a new and vibrant way, Bishop John Shelby Spong offers fresh spiritual ideas. Over the past four decades, he has become one of the definitive voices for progressive Christianity.
As a member of this online community, you’ll receive insightful weekly essays, access to all of the essay archives, access to message boards which will connect you with other believers in exile, and answers to your questions in our free weekly Q and A.
Click here to go to website/sign up for email list
Join us as we co-create A New Reformation and an international society dedicated to the work and theology of Bishop Spong.
For those seeking to experience Christianity in a new and vibrant way, Bishop John Shelby Spong offers fresh spiritual ideas. Over the past four decades, he has become one of the definitive voices for progressive Christianity.
As a member of this online community, you’ll receive insightful weekly essays, access to all of the essay archives, access to message boards which will connect you with other believers in exile, and answers to your questions in our free weekly Q and A.
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Welcome to the JohnShelbySpong.com, Transformation Now website!
Join us as we transition toward and co-create Transformation Now, an international society dedicated to perpetuating and expanding on the work and theology of Bishop Spong.
For those seeking to experience Christianity in a new and vibrant way, Bishop John Shelby Spong and his endorsed successors offer fresh spiritual ideas. Over the past four decades, Bishop Spong has become one of the definitive voices for progressive Christianity. As a member of Bishop Spong’s online community, you’ll receive insightful weekly essays, access to all of the essay archives, access to message boards which will connect you with other believers in exile, and answers to your questions in our weekly Q and A.
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We will continue to maintain this site indefinitely and although there will be some transitions as we move toward a rotating team of Bishop Spong successors, our vision is that this site will be the foundation of an international society formed to perpetuate and advance his thoughts. All subscribers will continue will have exclusive access to Bishop Spong’s Essay Archives. These hundreds of essays, written by John Spong exclusively for this site over a 16 year period, are excellent for use in research, in churches, study groups, and education.
Click here for a list of our new authors and their bios!
LETTER FROM BISHOP SPONG:
Dear Friends,
As you may have heard, while visiting in Marquette, Michigan I suffered a stroke. The date was September 10th. Since that time I have worked hard to regain my strength. I have been quite successful in that and now have no trouble walking or using my arms. It has been a learning experience. Health is a major demand of my life. I still use my running track each day for about three miles, so I feel most fortunate. The book I was writing on “Charting a New Reformation” will meet its deadline and be at Harper by the due date, the first of March, 2017. I entertained returning to my column, but as the time goes by I no longer have the strength to keep up that schedule, so I have informed Fred Plumer of Progressive Christianity.Org that I will not be able to return to that task. I write to notify you, my readers, and to enable Fred to begin the process to choose a successor.
That is not an easy thing to do for I have loved that column and the relationship I have had with so many of you. I realize that I can no lo longer write, edit and send a column a week out to my readers. I have written this column for sixteen years and it demands an intensity that I no longer profess. Even aided by my wife, who edited every column I ever wrote, cannot make up the difference. So we have decided to give it up.
I want to thank you all for the many letters I have received. More than thirty thousand letters have come to me since the stroke. There was no way I could acknowledge them or even respond to them, but I read every one of them and was warmed by the experience. I am now in my 86th year of life. It has been a good life and I am proud of it all. I wish I could have finished on my schedule, but that was not to be.
I ask you to give your attention to the following letter written with my blessing by my colleagues at Progressive Christianity about the future. I hope it will be the start of a major new contribution to religious journalism,
Sincerely
JOHN SHELBY SPONG
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SUBSCRIBERS?
Dear Friends,
Over the last few months we have had time to think about what we could do if Jack Spong could not return to writing his regular column for us. We have worked with our team to consider what we might do if this became the eventuality, and I am very excited about what we’ve been able to put together. As a subscriber to the newsletter you have been on the inside circle as we have charted this new reformation. It has been fun, challenging, and sometimes even a little scary going into these uncharted waters. I hope you have gained great value out of it.
The next big step in the new reformation is to put what we have been talking about into widespread practice, and that’s where the next phase of this subscription newsletter comes into play. We have been able to assemble a team of some of the best and brightest authors / theologians / and movement leaders out there today who are taking these bold concepts and enlightenments and putting them into practice in the streets, pews, and on social media.
We have a few well known national lecturers and authors such as Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, Rev. Gretta Vosper, Rev. David Felten, and a close personal friend to Bishop Spong, Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who was the first person elected bishop in the Episcopal to have his election turned down by the house of Bishops since 1875 on strictly theological grounds. In addition to those veteran voices, we have some of the most compelling leaders of the social media movement out there today, such as “Science” Mike McHargue, Rev. Mark Sandlin, Eric Alexander, and Rev. Roger Wolsey. If you haven’t heard of any of these folks I assure you they are out there in a big way helping to lead the next generations along the new reformation. These authors will be on a regular rotating schedule to write a series of columns that will not be published anywhere else, for our new Bishop Spong inspired and endorsed series, called A New Reformation. We envision this series forming a virtual society around the world that serves to perpetuate and expand upon his thoughts.
Over the coming weeks you will hear more from my team about this exciting new transition, and our cast of contributors. We will continue to repost some of the Spong essays of the past and maybe even an occasional new one if that becomes possible. From here I welcome you to grow with us through our next phase as I believe it will be greatly valuable and entertaining to you; but also because I know your support will be essential in growing our message exponentially around the world from here on out. By continuing to be a subscriber, you will be supporting the infinitely important work that Bishop Spong has shared with our world.
Sincerely,
Fred Plumer, ProgressiveChristianity.org
The Latest Essays and Q & A:
23 February 2017: Putting the Shark Back in the Ocean: Restoring the Sacred. Reclaiming Jesus. Reforming the Church.
By Rev. Roger Wolsey Bluntly speaking, American Christianity has jumped the shark.* It has been co-opted, hijacked, and derailed. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the way of following Jesus in the U.S. has become reduced to an overly personalized, private state of mind that involves individuals giving …
Read More…
16 February 2017: Take Care of Number One
By Gretta Vosper Take Care of Number One. And everything else takes care of itself. I know. You think you’ve opened the wrong email or caught a link to the wrong page. This must be from Mind, Body, Green, or A Daily Dose of Motivation. Maybe you’re signed up to …
Read More…
9 February 2017: Japan’s 18th-Century Pioneer of Historical Consciousness
Martin Scorsese recently released a film adaptation of the 1966 novel Silence by Shusaku Endo that traces the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan. As a long-time admirer and friend of the Japanese people, I am understandably nervous about how this new film will affect Western perceptions of a country I hold dear, so …
Read More…
Visit Essay Archive
News Items:
8 April 2015: Jesus the Cold Case – Documentary with Bishop Spong
AFTA Award for Best Documentary 2012, Winner Silver and Bronze Medals at The New York Festivals International Film and Television Awards. In his native New Zealand Bryan Bruce writes, directs and hosts the internationally successful crime show THE INVESTIGATOR in which he re- examines unsolved crimes In 2010 he decided to apply his criminal investigative …
Read More…
14 January 2015: Newly Released Book of Essays on The Birth of Jesus by Bishop Spong
Click here to purchase! We are excited to announce this just released book of essays by Bishop John Shelby Spong on Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. While Luke’s narrative, the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus, is lyrical and inspiring, in The Birth of Jesus, Spong persuasively demonstrates it is allegory. Layer …
Read More…
22 August 2014: The Fourth Gospel in Paper Now Available for Pre-Order
Rescuing John’s Gospel from Its Creedal Captivity John Shelby Spong, bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a …
Read More…
Visit News Archive
In Need of a Good Word?
We encourage you to show your support for positive and progressive Christian views by becoming a part of Bishop Spong's growing online community. You'll receive a new column each week on topics in social justice and spirituality that matter most.
Join the Movement
Free Q&A Email
Sign up for Bishop Spong's FREE weekly Q&A email.
Search
Looking for something special? Search here:
Browse by Date
Browse our monthly archives:© 2014 ProgressiveChristianity.org | Privacy Policy | Contact UsREAD ON...
Events and Updates
The Transformation of Suffering: A Lenten Journey
Starting March 1st, this e-course will explore the transformation of suffering as an evolutionary and transformative process in and through the divine/human experience — Christ in as, as us.
Through a combination of email, video and audio teachings, as well as the opportunity to share and connect with a worldwide community in the online Practice Circle
The Transformation of Suffering: A Lenten Journey by Contemplative Outreach, Thomas Keating
“For every man’s life contains its share of suffering; each of us is occasionally driven almost to despair, to ask why God allows evil and suffering to overtake him or those he loves. I had seen a great deal of suffering in the camps and prisons in those around me, had almost despaired myself, and had learned in those darkest of hours to turn to God for consolation and to trust in him alone.
… Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God had led me to an understanding of life and his love that only those who have experienced it can fathom. He had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that men rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me. And yet what a profound difference they had made in my life, what strength they gave me, what courage to go on!”
— Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., He Leadeth Me
+++
“When accepted, suffering leads to wisdom, which is the perception of the divine goodness and purpose in everything that happens. Wisdom, peace and faith — that is to say, perfect trust in God — transform suffering into — I won’t quite say ‘joy’ — but give it a meaning that takes away resistance and one can then see a value in one’s suffering that is … well, God-like.”
— Thomas Keating, The Gift of Life: Death & Dying, Life & Living companion book
This e-course will explore the transformation of suffering as an evolutionary and transformative process in and through the divine/human experience — Christ in as, as us. The content will include excerpts from various Thomas Keating videos and writings, the wisdom of numerous contemplative witnesses and the practice of Visio Divina with the crucifix images of artist William Congdon.
Through a combination of email, video and audio teachings, as well as the opportunity to share and connect with a worldwide community in the online Practice Circle, you can expect:
* Email teachings sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
* A contemplative engagement with Scripture as a way of seeing, listening, reflecting, and then living the great themes of Lent in your own life.
* The use of music, art and personal stories as evocative invitations to reflect, respond and participate in your own process of understanding and transformation.
* Mini-practices to support a contemplative life rooted in silence, solitude, stillness, solidarity, and service.
A special invitation to participate in the United in Prayer Day on March 18, either through local groups and events, an individual in-home retreat and/or a 24-hour, worldwide virtual prayer vigil.
(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.) Partial scholarships are available through Contemplative Outreach. Please inquire at pamela@coutreach.org.
To register for this e-course as part of our year-long program “The Journey into the Light,” click here: Journey into the Light – A Year-Long Program with Contemplative Outreach
To register for only this e-course at this time, click on the “Subscribe to E-Course” button below.
Images
Start:
March 1, 2017
End:
April 14, 2017
Location:
Online eCourse
Register:
$75
Contact:
Mary Ann Brussat
Organization:
Spirituality & Practice
Website:
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ecourses/course/view/10192/the-transformation-of-suffering-a-lenten-journey/key/tcpc
Email:
brussat@spiritualityandpractice.com
READ ON ...
View all upcoming events here!
News
Job Listings
*** Remember to send us your Events and Job Postings - we will advertise them on our website free!
Click on Amazon Smile and choose ProgressiveChristianity.org as your charity - when you shop Amazon donates .05%.
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ABOUT BISHOP SPONG
VIDEOS
NEWS
CALENDAR
SAMPLE ESSAYS
ESSAY ARCHIVE
MESSAGE BOARDS
STORE
PARTNERS
Transformation Now! A Bishop Spong Society
Welcome to the JohnShelbySpong.com, Transformation Now website!
Join us as we transition toward and co-create Transformation Now, an international society dedicated to perpetuating and expanding on the work and theology of Bishop Spong.
For those seeking to experience Christianity in a new and vibrant way, Bishop John Shelby Spong and his endorsed successors offer fresh spiritual ideas. Over the past four decades, Bishop Spong has become one of the definitive voices for progressive Christianity. As a member of Bishop Spong’s online community, you’ll receive insightful weekly essays, access to all of the essay archives, access to message boards which will connect you with other believers in exile, and answers to your questions in our weekly Q and A.
IMPORTANT UPDATE!!
We will continue to maintain this site indefinitely and although there will be some transitions as we move toward a rotating team of Bishop Spong successors, our vision is that this site will be the foundation of an international society formed to perpetuate and advance his thoughts. All subscribers will continue will have exclusive access to Bishop Spong’s Essay Archives. These hundreds of essays, written by John Spong exclusively for this site over a 16 year period, are excellent for use in research, in churches, study groups, and education.
Click here for a list of our new authors and their bios!
LETTER FROM BISHOP SPONG:
Dear Friends,
As you may have heard, while visiting in Marquette, Michigan I suffered a stroke. The date was September 10th. Since that time I have worked hard to regain my strength. I have been quite successful in that and now have no trouble walking or using my arms. It has been a learning experience. Health is a major demand of my life. I still use my running track each day for about three miles, so I feel most fortunate. The book I was writing on “Charting a New Reformation” will meet its deadline and be at Harper by the due date, the first of March, 2017. I entertained returning to my column, but as the time goes by I no longer have the strength to keep up that schedule, so I have informed Fred Plumer of Progressive Christianity.Org that I will not be able to return to that task. I write to notify you, my readers, and to enable Fred to begin the process to choose a successor.
That is not an easy thing to do for I have loved that column and the relationship I have had with so many of you. I realize that I can no lo longer write, edit and send a column a week out to my readers. I have written this column for sixteen years and it demands an intensity that I no longer profess. Even aided by my wife, who edited every column I ever wrote, cannot make up the difference. So we have decided to give it up.
I want to thank you all for the many letters I have received. More than thirty thousand letters have come to me since the stroke. There was no way I could acknowledge them or even respond to them, but I read every one of them and was warmed by the experience. I am now in my 86th year of life. It has been a good life and I am proud of it all. I wish I could have finished on my schedule, but that was not to be.
I ask you to give your attention to the following letter written with my blessing by my colleagues at Progressive Christianity about the future. I hope it will be the start of a major new contribution to religious journalism,
Sincerely
JOHN SHELBY SPONG
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SUBSCRIBERS?
Dear Friends,
Over the last few months we have had time to think about what we could do if Jack Spong could not return to writing his regular column for us. We have worked with our team to consider what we might do if this became the eventuality, and I am very excited about what we’ve been able to put together. As a subscriber to the newsletter you have been on the inside circle as we have charted this new reformation. It has been fun, challenging, and sometimes even a little scary going into these uncharted waters. I hope you have gained great value out of it.
The next big step in the new reformation is to put what we have been talking about into widespread practice, and that’s where the next phase of this subscription newsletter comes into play. We have been able to assemble a team of some of the best and brightest authors / theologians / and movement leaders out there today who are taking these bold concepts and enlightenments and putting them into practice in the streets, pews, and on social media.
We have a few well known national lecturers and authors such as Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, Rev. Gretta Vosper, Rev. David Felten, and a close personal friend to Bishop Spong, Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who was the first person elected bishop in the Episcopal to have his election turned down by the house of Bishops since 1875 on strictly theological grounds. In addition to those veteran voices, we have some of the most compelling leaders of the social media movement out there today, such as “Science” Mike McHargue, Rev. Mark Sandlin, Eric Alexander, and Rev. Roger Wolsey. If you haven’t heard of any of these folks I assure you they are out there in a big way helping to lead the next generations along the new reformation. These authors will be on a regular rotating schedule to write a series of columns that will not be published anywhere else, for our new Bishop Spong inspired and endorsed series, called A New Reformation. We envision this series forming a virtual society around the world that serves to perpetuate and expand upon his thoughts.
Over the coming weeks you will hear more from my team about this exciting new transition, and our cast of contributors. We will continue to repost some of the Spong essays of the past and maybe even an occasional new one if that becomes possible. From here I welcome you to grow with us through our next phase as I believe it will be greatly valuable and entertaining to you; but also because I know your support will be essential in growing our message exponentially around the world from here on out. By continuing to be a subscriber, you will be supporting the infinitely important work that Bishop Spong has shared with our world.
Sincerely,
Fred Plumer, ProgressiveChristianity.org
The Latest Essays and Q & A:
23 February 2017: Putting the Shark Back in the Ocean: Restoring the Sacred. Reclaiming Jesus. Reforming the Church.
By Rev. Roger Wolsey Bluntly speaking, American Christianity has jumped the shark.* It has been co-opted, hijacked, and derailed. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the way of following Jesus in the U.S. has become reduced to an overly personalized, private state of mind that involves individuals giving …
Read More…
16 February 2017: Take Care of Number One
By Gretta Vosper Take Care of Number One. And everything else takes care of itself. I know. You think you’ve opened the wrong email or caught a link to the wrong page. This must be from Mind, Body, Green, or A Daily Dose of Motivation. Maybe you’re signed up to …
Read More…
9 February 2017: Japan’s 18th-Century Pioneer of Historical Consciousness
Martin Scorsese recently released a film adaptation of the 1966 novel Silence by Shusaku Endo that traces the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan. As a long-time admirer and friend of the Japanese people, I am understandably nervous about how this new film will affect Western perceptions of a country I hold dear, so …
Read More…
Visit Essay Archive
News Items:
8 April 2015: Jesus the Cold Case – Documentary with Bishop Spong
AFTA Award for Best Documentary 2012, Winner Silver and Bronze Medals at The New York Festivals International Film and Television Awards. In his native New Zealand Bryan Bruce writes, directs and hosts the internationally successful crime show THE INVESTIGATOR in which he re- examines unsolved crimes In 2010 he decided to apply his criminal investigative …
Read More…
14 January 2015: Newly Released Book of Essays on The Birth of Jesus by Bishop Spong
Click here to purchase! We are excited to announce this just released book of essays by Bishop John Shelby Spong on Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. While Luke’s narrative, the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus, is lyrical and inspiring, in The Birth of Jesus, Spong persuasively demonstrates it is allegory. Layer …
Read More…
22 August 2014: The Fourth Gospel in Paper Now Available for Pre-Order
Rescuing John’s Gospel from Its Creedal Captivity John Shelby Spong, bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a …
Read More…
Visit News Archive
In Need of a Good Word?
We encourage you to show your support for positive and progressive Christian views by becoming a part of Bishop Spong's growing online community. You'll receive a new column each week on topics in social justice and spirituality that matter most.
Join the Movement
Free Q&A Email
Sign up for Bishop Spong's FREE weekly Q&A email.
Search
Looking for something special? Search here:
Browse by Date
Browse our monthly archives:© 2014 ProgressiveChristianity.org | Privacy Policy | Contact UsREAD ON...
Events and Updates
The Transformation of Suffering: A Lenten Journey
Starting March 1st, this e-course will explore the transformation of suffering as an evolutionary and transformative process in and through the divine/human experience — Christ in as, as us.
Through a combination of email, video and audio teachings, as well as the opportunity to share and connect with a worldwide community in the online Practice Circle
The Transformation of Suffering: A Lenten Journey by Contemplative Outreach, Thomas Keating
“For every man’s life contains its share of suffering; each of us is occasionally driven almost to despair, to ask why God allows evil and suffering to overtake him or those he loves. I had seen a great deal of suffering in the camps and prisons in those around me, had almost despaired myself, and had learned in those darkest of hours to turn to God for consolation and to trust in him alone.
… Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God had led me to an understanding of life and his love that only those who have experienced it can fathom. He had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that men rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me. And yet what a profound difference they had made in my life, what strength they gave me, what courage to go on!”
— Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., He Leadeth Me
+++
“When accepted, suffering leads to wisdom, which is the perception of the divine goodness and purpose in everything that happens. Wisdom, peace and faith — that is to say, perfect trust in God — transform suffering into — I won’t quite say ‘joy’ — but give it a meaning that takes away resistance and one can then see a value in one’s suffering that is … well, God-like.”
— Thomas Keating, The Gift of Life: Death & Dying, Life & Living companion book
This e-course will explore the transformation of suffering as an evolutionary and transformative process in and through the divine/human experience — Christ in as, as us. The content will include excerpts from various Thomas Keating videos and writings, the wisdom of numerous contemplative witnesses and the practice of Visio Divina with the crucifix images of artist William Congdon.
Through a combination of email, video and audio teachings, as well as the opportunity to share and connect with a worldwide community in the online Practice Circle, you can expect:
* Email teachings sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
* A contemplative engagement with Scripture as a way of seeing, listening, reflecting, and then living the great themes of Lent in your own life.
* The use of music, art and personal stories as evocative invitations to reflect, respond and participate in your own process of understanding and transformation.
* Mini-practices to support a contemplative life rooted in silence, solitude, stillness, solidarity, and service.
A special invitation to participate in the United in Prayer Day on March 18, either through local groups and events, an individual in-home retreat and/or a 24-hour, worldwide virtual prayer vigil.
(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.) Partial scholarships are available through Contemplative Outreach. Please inquire at pamela@coutreach.org.
To register for this e-course as part of our year-long program “The Journey into the Light,” click here: Journey into the Light – A Year-Long Program with Contemplative Outreach
To register for only this e-course at this time, click on the “Subscribe to E-Course” button below.
Images
Start:
March 1, 2017
End:
April 14, 2017
Location:
Online eCourse
Register:
$75
Contact:
Mary Ann Brussat
Organization:
Spirituality & Practice
Website:
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ecourses/course/view/10192/the-transformation-of-suffering-a-lenten-journey/key/tcpc
Email:
brussat@spiritualityandpractice.com
READ ON ...
View all upcoming events here!
News
Job Listings
*** Remember to send us your Events and Job Postings - we will advertise them on our website free!
Click on Amazon Smile and choose ProgressiveChristianity.org as your charity - when you shop Amazon donates .05%.
FacebookTwitterWebsiteEmailYouTubeCopyright © 2017 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
ProgressiveChristianity.org
4810 Point Fosdick Drive NorthWest#80
Gig Harbor, Washington 98335, United States
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