Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Girl survived tribe's custom of live baby burial

By Jemimah Wright in Brasilia
From Telegraph.Co.Uk

Babies born into some Indian tribes in the Amazon are being buried alive, a practice that is being covered up by the Brazilian authorities out of respect for tribal culture. The tradition is based on beliefs that babies with any sort of physical defect have no souls and that others, such as twins or triplets, are also "cursed". Hakani, who lived in the forest for three years after being abandoned, aged two, by her tribe. She was finally adopted by Marcia and Edson Suzuki and is now attending an ordinary school

Gems from Tilly - Interview, review and excerpt by Brad and Dominic Jersak with Meg Tilly

After my review of Meg Tilly’s work, entitled “A Spirituality of Courage and Hope,” she graciously responded to some questions that I hadn’t seen others pursue. Herein is the interview, along with a review of Porcupine written by my son, Dominic, who is 11 years old, and a powerful sample of prose/memory from Meg that she’s lent us from her blog site (www.officialmegtilly.com).

Porcupine – Review by Dominic Jersak (11)

Porcupine is a book about a 12 year old girl and her siblings. Their father was killed by ‘friendly fire’ in a war. Their mother eventually drove her family to the other side of Canada to live with her grandmother. There are many small events in this book that tie it together to make it a great book. 

The morals and some strong themes of Porcupine were courage, being helpful, and forgiveness.

"You Are Who You Pretend to Be" by Brad Jersak

    “Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be.”    (Kurt Vonnegut)

Recently, I spent an afternoon serving coffee and cake at Mission Possible, a drop-in centre for the homeless in East Vancouver. I took the enjoyable role of delivering goodies to the table where those with disabilities sat eagerly waiting. On handing what I regarded as an unspectacular angel-food square to one senior visitor, he threw his hands in the air and shouted joyfully to the heavens, “The Lord saves his best for his servants!” His face glowed with gratitude through bright eyes set in deeply wrinkled skin and framed in a beautiful white beard. I took this as an invitation.

What's Coming? by Eric Janzen (for Fresh Wind 2008)

As I listened to the Lord about what to expect in the coming year, this is what I heard the Lord saying last night and this morning.

Last night he asked me if I could hear the wind.  It was quiet and peaceful outside and I could hear it, so I said, “Yes, I can hear it.” He replied:

“This year you will hear the wind of my Spirit.  This past year was a year of anticipation, building hope in my promises, hope to see the activity of my Kingdom becoming more evident. The coming year is about the Good News and seeing this anticipation not only increase, but begin to be met.  It is important to remember that the Gospel is what is paramount. The presence of my Kingdom goes hand in hand with the Gospel.  Too often the Good News is used as a bludgeon to wound (be saved or else… be saved or go to hell… be saved or be rejected… etc). What does the Kingdom look like to people then?  The Gospel opens the wedding table to the poor, the shamed, the outcast, the wealthy, the broken, and even those who are whole. 

Theology, Culture and M.E. by Brian Schmidt

Theology, Culture & M.E. Brian Schmidt, BGS, M.Ed. [& M.E.]

The following is an excerpt from my All Saints’ Day, 2007 reflections on living with M.E. after having the illness for 17 years, and a month after a dear person who had M.E. took her life after living with it for 28 years—mostly on her own, without much help, and not believed most of the time.

M.E. is a poorly understood chronic illness affecting thousands of people worldwide. It’s closely related to Fibromyalgia [FM], a disease that also involves neurocognitive symptoms, pain and chronic fatigue.

Welcome to My Living Room by Corinne Vooys

WELCOME TO MY LIVING ROOM

A swirling
Softness
Fills the room, as a fog.
It gently brushes my face, with sweetness and refreshing.
A presence.

I look through the fog and see
Faces of joy,
Which in one world would be seen as a face of the disabled,
but here it is the face of royalty sitting in the throne room,
with dignity.
Others dance,
They dance on the dance floor with loved ones, big and small.

Michael Azkoul's Ye Are Gods -- Review by Ron Dart

Both the Scriptures and the Fathers attest to the truth of deification as the teaching of the church from the beginning, universally confessed even if not universally expounded. Michael Azkoul, Ye Are Gods (p.2)

I have had an abiding interest in Orthodoxy since the 1970s. I did an MA thesis at Regent College (Vancouver, BC) on ‘The Spirituality of John Cassian’, and did another MA thesis at the University of British Columbia (UBC) on ‘Origen and Anthony’. I also had the opportunity to read, in a guided study, Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses in the Patristic Greek of the Late Antique Era. I was quite drawn, at the time, to the academic, intellectual and publishing work that was emerging from St. Vladimir’s Seminary and Press. I used Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition for my comprehensives, and I enjoyed a correspondence with both Jaroslav Pelikan and John Meyendorff when both men were alive.

Reviewing Lazar by Ron Dart

Book Reviews (books available through http://www.new-ostrog.org/synaxis/):

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, Freedom To Believe: Personhood and Freedom in Orthodox Christian Ontology (Dewdney, B.C.: Synaxis Press, Second Edition, 2007).  

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The Impact of Orthodox Christian Thought on Medicine (Dewdney: Synaxis Press, 2006)

Preface:

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo has ventured faithfully and steadfastly, into intellectual and political terrain that few Orthodox theologians in North America have dared enter. The journey into such deep and demanding places has done much to reveal the splendour and motherlode of the Orthodox Tradition.   

Message of Hope for 2008 from Partners Relief and Development

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn…Where there is no vision, the people perish”. Proverbs 29:2 &18(KJV)

Dear all,

As I look towards 2008, along with many others I am sure; I cannot help but look back over the past year and reflect.

Three months after the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators the international media attention on Burma has abated. The SPDC has made a claim that “normalcy” has returned. I agree that this is true. For many years the suppression of freedom and the systematic and widespread human rights violations undertaken by the hands of the Burma Army has been normal, everyday behaviour for this wicked and despotic regime.

Where is God at Christmas? (part 2): Reflections for the New Year by Brian Schmidt

Today I celebrated Christmas Day with my dad in his Extended Care Unit—at a luncheon filled with people's bodies and minds frozen to various degrees, and staff and family members cheerfully feeding them, greeting them, teasing them.  The wife of one of Dad's roommates wished me “a meaningful Christmas.” 

For weeks I've been pondering the meaning of Christmas, which we so associate with snow, snowmen and sleighs, with carols, cards, and cheer, with lights, trees, and decorations, with Santa, elves, and reindeer, with whether we've been naughty or nice, with noisy, overcrowded shopping malls, with buying and getting lots of expensive gifts, with family gatherings and family letters to friends, with stuffing ourselves with turkeys, eggnog and puddings—oh so many things, and, oh yes, with school pageants, nativity scenes, and midnight mass.