Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

The High Tory Position - Ron Dart on the Absurdist Podcast

Jim Forest's "Writing Straight with Crooked Lines" - Review by Ron Dart

Jim Forest, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir (Orbis Books, 2020).

I first met Jim Forest in the mid-1980s when he was still general secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and I was on staff with Amnesty International. We met, initially, the old fashioned way (letter writing). Jim and I have stayed in touch since then. Jim and I, working for two different Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the area of peace and human rights, indeed, know what it means to be “Beggar-in Chief” (a chapter in Writing Straight with Crooked Lines). We are often expected to run like racehorses yet fed like beggars. But, to the book. The mid-1980s signaled a significant shift in the Cold War, March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in the former USSR. Who would have guessed the changes in the USSR and religion in Russia (an important topic and life changer for Jim and his wife Nancy) with Gorbachev coming to power? Many are the chapters in this Memoir of Jim’s trips to Russia, Orthodoxy, and Russian literature. Jim and I have had some lovely email correspondence recently of Boris Pasternak and Dr. Zhivago, 2020 being the 60^th anniversary of Pasternak’s death. Interestingly, as Jim noted in his missive when Nancy Reagan was in Russia with her husband, Ronald Reagan, she took the time to go to Pasternak’s grave. Jim sent Nancy Reagan a photograph of the grave and Nancy Reagan replied in a letter of gratitude. History is, indeed, replete with those small and often ignored acts of transcending the tribalism of ideological culture and political wars.    

Writing Straight with Crooked Lines, in the birthing chapters, dealt with Jim’s parents, parents immersed in Marxist thought and communism, and in McCarthy era America, knowing the paid price for such commitments. There is a poignant sense that Jim was gifted with parents who knew the cost of standing by convictions, convictions perhaps naïve and misguided, yet faithful to a vision. It was this underlying experience that, perhaps, partially, explains Jim’s turn, post naval job, to a form of public Christian faith that was also very much about faithfulness to Christian convictions (Jim’s father and mother, although Marxist, were not anti-religious or anti-Christian). The turn by Jim in the early 1960s to work with the Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day certainly had left of centre tendencies, tendencies inherited from his parental past. Many of the initial chapters in A Memoir deal with Jim’s meandering journey (crooked yet moving in a discernable direction) to an Anglican then Roman Catholic ecclesiology with an engaged peace focus to it. Dorothy Day pointed the way, in time, to Thomas Merton (both significant models and mentors for Jim). Each of the insightful, fast-paced and anecdotal chapters in the autobiography are both a journey with Jim as he moves through time and history but also an overview of the terrain of the time, war, and peace ever at odds.

I might add that most of the black-white photographs in the book are keepers not to miss.

The 1960s-1980s brought Jim into contact with some of those most committed to peace but peace in a just manner: Dan and Phil Berrigan, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, A.J. Muste, Joan Baez, Al Hassler, Jim Douglass, Adolfo Perez Esquival, Martin Luther King Jr. and many other women and men on the just peace train. The larger public and political issues of peace and unity, so the crooked lines go, took Jim to a variety of marriages that were not about peace but more discord and disunity, separations troubling and painful. It was the meeting with Nancy that brought, for Jim, solid and straight lines, a path to deeper life and love that shines clean and clear in A Memoir, in time, Nancy offering her kidney so Jim’s body could be more at peace.

The almost 70 short yet riveting chapters in this must-read beauty are more than worthy of multiple reads. Much is learned, of course, about Jim’s journey (and many of those he interacted with) but also the cost of being someone concerned for peace and acting on it. The transition of Jim-Nancy to the Orthodox church (given their trips to Russia in the Russian thaw) makes for a window into the glasnost-perestrioka years and, perhaps more importantly, dukhovnost (spiritual life of the people). It would have been interesting to hear Jim’s thoughts on Putin and the state of the Russian Orthodox Church these days. It was somewhat interesting how, in many ways, Henri Nouwen was a healing shepherd to Jim as he was living through a painful marriage crisis, and yet, when Jim/Nancy turned to the Orthodox Tradition,  Nouwen found such a move problematic. Jim’s reflections on this fuller ecclesiology are included in the autobiography with an oft-quoted passage by Merton on uniting the Eastern and Western forms of Christianity.

Writing Straight with Crooked Lines comes to an apt and fitting close with Jim tipping his grateful hat (replete with photographs) to his mentors: Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Daniel Berrigan, Henri Nouwen and Al Hassler-Joan Baez (certainly high-level worthies of the 20^th-21^st centuries peace movements and various types of activism). The final photo (peace fingers held in a joyful way and full-face smiles) is fitting of Jim and Nancy (his decades-long wife who has brought him much peace and many a straight line) on, appropriately, the feast of St. Martha.

Ron Dart             

Jim Forest's "Writing Straight with Crooked Lines" - Review by Ron Dart

Jim Forest, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir (Orbis Books, 2020).

I first met Jim Forest in the mid-1980s when he was still general secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and I was on staff with Amnesty International. We met, initially, the old fashioned way (letter writing). Jim and I have stayed in touch since then. Jim and I, working for two different Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the area of peace and human rights, indeed, know what it means to be “Beggar-in Chief” (a chapter in Writing Straight with Crooked Lines). We are often expected to run like racehorses yet fed like beggars. But, to the book. The mid-1980s signaled a significant shift in the Cold War, March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in the former USSR. Who would have guessed the changes in the USSR and religion in Russia (an important topic and life changer for Jim and his wife Nancy) with Gorbachev coming to power? Many are the chapters in this Memoir of Jim’s trips to Russia, Orthodoxy, and Russian literature. Jim and I have had some lovely email correspondence recently of Boris Pasternak and Dr. Zhivago, 2020 being the 60^th anniversary of Pasternak’s death. Interestingly, as Jim noted in his missive when Nancy Reagan was in Russia with her husband, Ronald Reagan, she took the time to go to Pasternak’s grave. Jim sent Nancy Reagan a photograph of the grave and Nancy Reagan replied in a letter of gratitude. History is, indeed, replete with those small and often ignored acts of transcending the tribalism of ideological culture and political wars.    

Writing Straight with Crooked Lines, in the birthing chapters, dealt with Jim’s parents, parents immersed in Marxist thought and communism, and in McCarthy era America, knowing the paid price for such commitments. There is a poignant sense that Jim was gifted with parents who knew the cost of standing by convictions, convictions perhaps naïve and misguided, yet faithful to a vision. It was this underlying experience that, perhaps, partially, explains Jim’s turn, post naval job, to a form of public Christian faith that was also very much about faithfulness to Christian convictions (Jim’s father and mother, although Marxist, were not anti-religious or anti-Christian). The turn by Jim in the early 1960s to work with the Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day certainly had left of centre tendencies, tendencies inherited from his parental past. Many of the initial chapters in A Memoir deal with Jim’s meandering journey (crooked yet moving in a discernable direction) to an Anglican then Roman Catholic ecclesiology with an engaged peace focus to it. Dorothy Day pointed the way, in time, to Thomas Merton (both significant models and mentors for Jim). Each of the insightful, fast-paced and anecdotal chapters in the autobiography are both a journey with Jim as he moves through time and history but also an overview of the terrain of the time, war, and peace ever at odds.

I might add that most of the black-white photographs in the book are keepers not to miss.

The 1960s-1980s brought Jim into contact with some of those most committed to peace but peace in a just manner: Dan and Phil Berrigan, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, A.J. Muste, Joan Baez, Al Hassler, Jim Douglass, Adolfo Perez Esquival, Martin Luther King Jr. and many other women and men on the just peace train. The larger public and political issues of peace and unity, so the crooked lines go, took Jim to a variety of marriages that were not about peace but more discord and disunity, separations troubling and painful. It was the meeting with Nancy that brought, for Jim, solid and straight lines, a path to deeper life and love that shines clean and clear in A Memoir, in time, Nancy offering her kidney so Jim’s body could be more at peace.

The almost 70 short yet riveting chapters in this must-read beauty are more than worthy of multiple reads. Much is learned, of course, about Jim’s journey (and many of those he interacted with) but also the cost of being someone concerned for peace and acting on it. The transition of Jim-Nancy to the Orthodox church (given their trips to Russia in the Russian thaw) makes for a window into the glasnost-perestrioka years and, perhaps more importantly, dukhovnost (spiritual life of the people). It would have been interesting to hear Jim’s thoughts on Putin and the state of the Russian Orthodox Church these days. It was somewhat interesting how, in many ways, Henri Nouwen was a healing shepherd to Jim as he was living through a painful marriage crisis, and yet, when Jim/Nancy turned to the Orthodox Tradition,  Nouwen found such a move problematic. Jim’s reflections on this fuller ecclesiology are included in the autobiography with an oft-quoted passage by Merton on uniting the Eastern and Western forms of Christianity.

Writing Straight with Crooked Lines comes to an apt and fitting close with Jim tipping his grateful hat (replete with photographs) to his mentors: Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Daniel Berrigan, Henri Nouwen and Al Hassler-Joan Baez (certainly high-level worthies of the 20^th-21^st centuries peace movements and various types of activism). The final photo (peace fingers held in a joyful way and full-face smiles) is fitting of Jim and Nancy (his decades-long wife who has brought him much peace and many a straight line) on, appropriately, the feast of St. Martha.

Ron Dart             

Lessons from My Maple - Eden Jersak

I’m enjoying the show Maple is putting on these days, she features prominently from the window in my kitchen, dining room and living room.

She is glorious ... all those colours, and how she changes from day to day! How different light catches and highlights different shades and shapes and shadows.
What I’m appreciating today is how these two photos show us how black and white thinking is detrimental to our faith and to how we relate to God.

When we get stuck in ruts of judgment... black and white ... good or bad ... yes or no ... saint or sinner ... we lose the colour in life! We’re left with hard lines of varying greys, even though we believe we’re sorting things into black and white.
But Jesus put the colour back into faith when he taught his disciples and those who have ears to hear. He took the black and white law and starting messing with it. He summed up ALL the Laws that explained how we are meant to live and treat those around us by saying this ... “Love your neighbour as yourself!”

That summary of the Law puts all the colour back into how our faith is worked out, how we demonstrate it, and the personal touches each of us might put on how that looks.

It also allows us to relate to God in a much more fluid and creatively free way. No need to check the rule book, just a permission slip to engage in loving our neighbours which includes everyone on our planet!

Consider asking God how you might tag-team to share some love today. Put some colour back into our world!

Loitering with Jesus - Kenneth Tanner

Loitering with Jesus

The leaves of this Japanese maple in our front-drive are not “useful” to me but I love beholding them.

In the church we are in the habit of asking, “What difference does this make for me on Monday morning?” or “How can I make use of this in my day-to-day life?”

The contemplation of God and of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ is good for you and for the world. It does not need to lead to anything “practical.” Loitering with the person of Jesus is beneficial all by itself.

To behold Jesus, to hear his words, and attend to his actions in the gospels are enough.

Yes, taking a walk or riding a bike is good for your health but if you are only walking or riding a bike to aid your well-being, if you’re not enjoying these acts of being in and of themselves, you are missing out on the best part.

Trust leaders who invite you simply to ponder the Word made flesh, who beckon you to contemplate God and humanity by and in Jesus Christ without a to-do list. No applications.

What you can learn from such teachers is that God is present and at work in you, in the creation, and in your circumstances (that’s a very good thing); that God is the active agent in the world’s salvation; and that your gracious participation in his words and acts begins with dwelling in and with him in stillness of heart and mind.

Sometimes we need to trust that the sheer meditation on God that John (and the other gospel witnesses) grant us is enough; that there does not have to be a “So what?” or a “What now?”

Just ponder the mystery.

There can be an unhealthy fixation on utility that we need to recognize and address, in this and in many areas of our lives.

“Is this useful or instrumental” *can* deny the legitimacy of wasting time in the wondrous contemplation of God and humanity that the person of Jesus affords us.

Nothing could be more relevant to life and how to live it than contemplation of the person who is both God and human.

Servant Leadership in the Public Square - Ron Dart

The Renaissance of Syriac Spirituality: the Forgotten Sibling - Ron Dart

See also Ron Dart and Abp Lazar Puhalo on "Syriac Fathers & Syrian Crisis" here:

Andromeda's Vulnerable Creator - Kenneth Tanner

Our closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light-years away. She dwarfs our galaxy and contains a trillion stars.

 

The energy that fuels all of those stars and has kept them in a spiral for 13 billion years is measurable, but who has the instruments or the time? The best we can do is make estimates.

 

Our witness and wisdom says that a first-century baby born to a peasant Jewish teenager, a baby whose stepfather was a carpenter, is the One who spoke this galaxy into fiery substance and perpetual motion from nothing.

 

And our tradition claims that this human is the One who spoke another hundred billion galaxies into existence from no substance that existed before...*ex nihilo* in the ancient tongue.

 

One of the stories about this human tells us that on the night before he suffered for the cosmos he created, that he loves from eternity before his own life, he took a towel and a basin of water and washed the feet of his friends.

 

You cannot wash someone’s feet without getting low to the ground, on your knees.

 

In the world of his time, the host of a meal would not be the one to wash the feet of his guests. This was the task of a servant.

 

What does it mean that the One who creates all stars and fuels their fires, is on his knees, serving humans?

 

Let me suggest that it means that most human projection of what it means to be a god or the God in the history of humans—and most human imagination of what it means to be powerful—is deeply mistaken.

 

One makes oneself vulnerable to wash feet in a world without proper sanitation and waste removal but this detail about humbly kneeling and scrubbing who knows what from smelly feet is not nearly the lowest place this human goes or will go to love the cosmos.

 

This human who is God descends further still, down into death, entering by his own terrible death into the death of every human, for every time the one human nature we all share dies we die again, and he dies again with us, and further still: he descends into all our hells.

 

Athanasius says that he keeps falling further than our hells and his descent is not slowed until he is beneath the deepest falling human, down to the edges of non-existence, to rescue us from the non-being from which we came and to give the one human nature we all share permanence.

 

He is not stingy with his kind of existence. He wants his fellow humans to participate in his never-ending divine life.

 

He gives humans not the permanence of Andromeda but his own permanence, and with all humans somehow gives the cosmos the gift of his eternity.

 

The name of this human who is God is Jesus Christ.

No Analogies, Please. Encounter! - Kenneth Tanner

Forget about explanations and analogies for the Trinity. Please instead take them hand-in-hand, then walk his students or disciples down a dusty path to the Jordan.

 

There, among the tall reeds on the bank stands Jesus, who has also just walked there from Nazareth, his feet tired, sore, and dirty.

 

Jesus wades in ankle-deep. The cool, flowing water is soothing. From here he watches his human brothers and sisters descend one by one, waist-deep, faces drawing near to John the Baptist.

They are entering the water to be cleansed, to repent. Jesus has no need for the cleansing, or the change of heart and mind, and yet here he is, his human face set toward suffering encounter.

 

Bonhoeffer says that Jesus does not ponder his perfection or feel his superiority but rather expresses solidarity with everyone gathered to be made well, to amend their ways, by—what wondrous love is this?—presenting himself for baptism, too.

 

As he approaches John, the Baptist recognizes not only the body of his cousin, with whom he played as a child, but Isaiah’s lamb, the One who takes away the sin of the world.

 

John is reluctant. He does not see why Jesus needs this ritual because he does not see the cross in this watery moment, does not understand that Jesus is already, here In the murky waters of the Jordan, descending into chaos, darkness, and death, taking on himself the sin of the whole world.

For every moment in this story is a story about the cross, and as a story about the cross is also a story about resurrection but only after it is a story about torture.

 

This is not a God who remains on the banks of the river, uninvolved and aloof from the pain of existence, but who joins us in our predicament, participates without sin in the deaths we each of us bear about in our bodies, especially in the moment of our deaths—all the preparatory ones and the last and final one—is baptized for us and with us.

 

Unlike the other gods we project and handcraft and make wishes for, this God is a baptized God. He identifies with us so that he might identify us with him.

He also rises out of the waters. He does not stay in the grave. And as he comes up out of the chaos and the darkness, he is in prayer. Perhaps he prays among other things, “Father forgive them.”

 

And here I want to loudly encourage the catechists, pastors, Sunday School teachers, and theologians of the church: forget your distorting analogies and torturous explanations and help your students and disciples have an *encounter* with the Living God!

 

Like this:

 

Jesus comes up out of the cool, flowing, murky waters, and as he prayers, we are told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that there’s the sound of avionic movement, there are wings, feathers, and mystery as the Holy Spirit “alights” or “rests” on the Son in the body of a dove. Perhaps she rests on his shoulder?

 

Do you see and hear the rustle of divine wings on the air?

And this is not nearly all.

 

We are told that the sky is torn, a rip occurs in space-time. And through the tear in existence, there is suddenly a Voice: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 

The majestic voice proceeds from the invisible Father who dwells in light so bright no one can approach him. And yet here is his Son with whom he is One God with their Spirit, who does not wait for us to approach him but who has approached us, who touches his human brothers and sisters and heals us, who looks upon us with compassion, who embraces us in suffering, who dies with us, that we might ever live.

 

The Father and the Spirit *reveal* themselves in this moment that the Son draws near to every human who has ever lived or ever will live, just as they reveal themselves in the transfiguration and at the cross.

 

The baptism of the human God does not separate Jesus from any other humans, nor any humans from any other humans, but draws every human into Love’s triune fellowship. And this why I trust that the Father is pleased with the Son, as he always is.

 

Why on earth would you use a symbol when you can *enter* the story of God with humans, the story of God as a human, a human with a Spirit that rests on him, a human with a Father who loves the world so much that he sent him, not to condemn the world but that the world through him might live.

 

Why make an analogy or explanation when you can live this revelation of the triune Love?

 

*thanks to Taylor, Drew, Jason, David, Ryan, Josh, and Todd for prompting this from somewhere deep in the Covid-jaded heart of this mere human that sometimes still feels like he has something pressing to say to anyone that might still be listening

Participating makes the relationship—not the pancakes—better - Jonathan Parker

 

The little hands flutter with excitement. Each child gets a chance to whisk the flour. The kids laugh as a tiny patch escapes the bowl, dusting the countertop like snow. It’s not the most efficient process for making pancakes, but it is the most meaningful.

 

The children smile as their mother kisses each forehand and voices her approval and gratefulness for the help. I’m convinced they’ll remember this feeling of acceptance for eternity. She looks just like Jesus.

 

When Christ looks out among the hungry multitude, He proposes the same arrangement to the disciples—would you like to participate in what I am doing? Why else would He suggest the impossible task of feeding so many? Jesus—taking the cues of His Father—is always playing the long game of relationship.

 

Relationships grow in a myriad of ways, but the fastest and most effective way is side by side. Jesus could have fed all those men, women and children completely on His own, but He and His friends would have missed out on a moment to grow their relationship through actively participating in the work together.

 

Those richest in relationships understand this fully—the sweetest part of life is inviting or accepting invitation. It takes patience, gentleness and the ability to ignore the clock to reach down to another’s level and allow them to join you, but it’s a gift of grace, time and unity.

 

Paul Young said, “any healthy family moves at the speed of its slowest member.” This is a stark contrast to our society’s addiction to efficiency porn and win-at-all-costs striving. A few years in that rat race leaves you empty in countless ways, but chiefly in relationships.

 

So Jesus calls us out of this endless striving for approval and place. What is the Incarnation if not the greatest declaration of eternal acceptance to all of humanity?

 

When Christ makes His home with us, it’s not to coerce or give orders. It’s to invite participation, not because it makes the process more effective, but because it makes the relationship stronger.

 

This call to participate is a call to engage deeply. Spouses, children and friends call us to this level of engagement throughout the day. Drs. John and Julie Gottman, couple specialists, call these little nudges “bids to connect.”

 

Adults often need these nudges towards real, lasting and nurturing relationships—a fresh break from performative ones. And what a gift to receive those bids for connection. When I am healthy and stable enough to accept that invitation from my children to rest in their play, I can feel the Spirit affirming my participation. Where does the bid to sit and rest and play originate? Again, I feel her answer.

 

As the Spirit—through her own voice or another’s—bids for deeper connection, embrace the rest, freedom and relationship.

 

In the heart of the Father, Son and Spirit, our participation brings the same kiss and affirmation of acceptance as a parent preparing pancakes with her children.

 

The mother—modeling her Heavenly Father—knows the pancakes don’t really matter; the relationship with her children does. Always the long the game.

 

Participating makes the relationship—not the pancakes—better - Jonathan Parker

 

The little hands flutter with excitement. Each child gets a chance to whisk the flour. The kids laugh as a tiny patch escapes the bowl, dusting the countertop like snow. It’s not the most efficient process for making pancakes, but it is the most meaningful.

 

The children smile as their mother kisses each forehand and voices her approval and gratefulness for the help. I’m convinced they’ll remember this feeling of acceptance for eternity. She looks just like Jesus.

 

When Christ looks out among the hungry multitude, He proposes the same arrangement to the disciples—would you like to participate in what I am doing? Why else would He suggest the impossible task of feeding so many? Jesus—taking the cues of His Father—is always playing the long game of relationship.

 

Relationships grow in a myriad of ways, but the fastest and most effective way is side by side. Jesus could have fed all those men, women and children completely on His own, but He and His friends would have missed out on a moment to grow their relationship through actively participating in the work together.

 

Those richest in relationships understand this fully—the sweetest part of life is inviting or accepting invitation. It takes patience, gentleness and the ability to ignore the clock to reach down to another’s level and allow them to join you, but it’s a gift of grace, time and unity.

 

Paul Young said, “any healthy family moves at the speed of its slowest member.” This is a stark contrast to our society’s addiction to efficiency porn and win-at-all-costs striving. A few years in that rat race leaves you empty in countless ways, but chiefly in relationships.

 

So Jesus calls us out of this endless striving for approval and place. What is the Incarnation if not the greatest declaration of eternal acceptance to all of humanity?

 

When Christ makes His home with us, it’s not to coerce or give orders. It’s to invite participation, not because it makes the process more effective, but because it makes the relationship stronger.

 

This call to participate is a call to engage deeply. Spouses, children and friends call us to this level of engagement throughout the day. Drs. John and Julie Gottman, couple specialists, call these little nudges “bids to connect.”

 

Adults often need these nudges towards real, lasting and nurturing relationships—a fresh break from performative ones. And what a gift to receive those bids for connection. When I am healthy and stable enough to accept that invitation from my children to rest in their play, I can feel the Spirit affirming my participation. Where does the bid to sit and rest and play originate? Again, I feel her answer.

 

As the Spirit—through her own voice or another’s—bids for deeper connection, embrace the rest, freedom and relationship.

 

In the heart of the Father, Son and Spirit, our participation brings the same kiss and affirmation of acceptance as a parent preparing pancakes with her children.

 

The mother—modeling her Heavenly Father—knows the pancakes don’t really matter; the relationship with her children does. Always the long the game.

 

"'God is With the Cast Away Woman': A Message to the East Jerusalem International Church" — By Rev. Lauren Whitfield

 

The following is the transcript of a sermon that was delivered via Zoom for the East Jerusalem International Church on Saturday, June 20, 2020 by Rev. Lauren Whitfield.

—————————————

Greeting and Gratitude

Well, good evening, or good morning, depending on where you are; good afternoon. I am so thankful to be here. Honestly, I’m deeply humbled just to even have this opportunity to share with you and be in your presence. Thank you to my family and friends who have joined.

Introduction: Recognizing Our Bias as We Read Scripture

Today’s text is the lectionary text for this week: Genesis 21:8–21 (NRSV). In our brief time together today, I would like to propose this focus from the reading of our text: God is with the castaway woman. Again, God is with the castaway woman. Let us pray:

Most gracious God, we thank You for Your presence, we thank You for Your word. I ask that You would speak to us this morning, this evening; Lord, that You would anoint our ears to hear and my lips to speak Your word. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Walter Lippman, in his classic work, “Public Opinion,” published in 1921, wrote the famous header, “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads.” In this work, he went on to coin a term that most of us, we’re probably familiar with, which is the term “stereotype.” Well, we all come to the text with a “picture in our heads.” I know I did. I was very surprised this week when in prayer, and reading the text, that there are so many parts of the story I had missed! Nuances I didn’t remember, words I hadn’t caught. And that’s my prayer for all of us today. That God would take things old and new from this story, and share them with us, God’s treasures.

Biblical Foundation

So here in this particular pericope, we find a young Ishmael “playing” or “laughing” w/Isaac, whose very name means laughter. The Hebrew word here for playing is tsä·khak' (sa-hack), playing/laughing or possibly mocking. This text had started so warmly: right before this story is the birth of Isaac; Isaac is here laughing. Sarah also is happy. “Who would have ever thought that a baby would nurse from Sarah.” Then the passage portrays a celebration. The child has just been weaned, and there’s going to be a great feast!

This warm story doesn’t last long; when Sarah sees Ishmael laughing with her son, something about it just doesn’t sit right with her. She goes to Abraham and demands, “Cast out this slave woman, with her son, for he won’t inherit with my son.”

John: Contemplative Theologian: John 11 - Lazarus, Mary, Martha & Caiaphas: Who are We?: Literalism and Allegory - Ron Dart

Rereading the Elijah story through the lens of Jesus, “Go Back the Way You Came” - Marlin Hendricks

Rereading the Elijah story through the lens of Jesus, “Go Back the Way You Came”

 

As a recovering Calvinist indoctrinated into a wrathful god who creates most humans for eternal punishment it is a very difficult learning curve to read the old testament through the self-giving, non-violent lens of Jesus. Recently I read the story of Elijah from 1 King 17 through 2 Kings 2 looking at the flow of the whole story and ended up with a lot of questions.

 

Elijah starts his career inclusive and life-giving with the widow of Zarephath(non-Jew) but seems to get worn down by the constant threat and pressure from Ahab and Jezebel and from a large number of false prophets. After the drought/famine episode this "calling down fire" (whatever that is all about) capability shows up (why doesn't he call down fire on Jezebel instead of running?) He seems to buy into the temptation to use POWER to further God's agenda, and when that results in a bounty on his head he goes into a real funk/burnout/depression and wishes to die. God seeks him out and calls him to Horeb (as in the burning bush, water from the rock) .

 

He ends up in a cave at Horeb and encounters God. God calls him out to stand on the mountain, but apparently he stays inside. God sends him a sample of power (earth, wind & fire) but what is effective in calling him out is a whisper because God was not in the wind, earthquake or fire. 

 

God's method is quite interesting; he seemingly quite gently asks him, “Elijah, why are you here?” Elijah pours out his heart. God's remedy to Elijah is “Go back the way you came”. Is this simply God's Garmin? A 'turn by turn' physical route-finder? Or is it possible that it refers to Elijah's attitude? Go back as humble and powerless as you came here to Horeb? 

 

 

God then commissions him to 3 anointings of which he (apparently) did none. When he found Elisha he did not anoint him but threw his cloak over him and when Elisha ran after him he in effect (it seems to me) blew it off and says 'what do I care?'. Elisha ends up anointing Jehu in 2 Kings 9:6. In 2 Kings 8, Elisha commissions Hazael.

 

Elijah still seems to be in a really bad mood when he next shows up and calls down fire on the 2 groups of 50.

 

The next and last, thing that happens is the trip to the Jordan to be taken up. He repeatedly tries to talk Elisha out of succeeding him. Also of interest is that the role of the chariot and horses is to separate Elijah and Elisha and then Elijah is taken up in the whirlwind – not the chariot.

 

It strikes me that Elijah is very disillusioned, belligerent and burnt out end to his career.

While God is often associated with fire, it is a protecting, enlightening, cleansing fire. Elijah seems to have combined his gift of calling down fire with a misguided zealousness for God. When God points this out to him he, at best, finds it extremely difficult to give up.

 

My take-away is that I MUST trust that the quiet whisper of love really is more powerful than the fire of zealotry. It is sobering to think that this was so difficult even for a spiritual giant like Elijah.

 

What might this mean in today's unholy alliance between evangelicalism and politics?

Restorative Justice: Peacemaking, NOT War-making - Wayne Northey (interview host: Brad Jersak)

IRPJ.org (Institute for Religion, Peace & Justice) presents an interview with Wayne Northey (host: Brad Jersak) highlighting the contrast between Western criminal justice as retributive pain-delivery and the inclusive, restorative, community justice that more effectively serves offenders, those they've harmed and the communities in which they live.

Transcript: Download IRPJ Q&A with Wayne Northey

Syriac Christianity: More to the Mountain - Ron Dart

There has been a tendency, in the west, when focusing on Christianity, to ponder the Roman Catholic Tradition, the break from the Roman Catholic ethos in the 16^th century, then the emergence of the multiple strands and schisms within Protestant Christianity. Such as been the western indulgence and reality. We discuss, live and reflect on what we know, the part of the mountain we see and have trekked in, built cornered plots of ground on and call home. Needless to say, our understanding of the faith journey is shaped and formed from what we can see from our vantage point on the mountain (regardless of how high or low we are on the part of the mountain we are on).

There has been a turn, in the last few decades, for various reasons, to the Orthodox and Oriental form of Christianity. There are those, more in a reactionary mode than anything else, who make such a turn, to idealize the Oriental and Orthodox brand of Christianity and either dismiss or subordinate Western or Occidental types of Christianity. Those committed to such an approach merely inhabit simply another part of the mountain of faith, the faith mountain, of course, much larger than either Western or Eastern Christianity can fully embody.

The tensions and clashes both within and between Western and Eastern types of Christianity in the areas of Biblical exegesis, theology,

ecclesiology, sacramentalism, liturgy, icons, cognitive-meditative ways of knowing, leadership styles, philosophy, public responsibility, monastic-lay life, creeds, councils, confessions, soteriology and anthropology collide in many places, hence faith tribes and clans live on their plots of land on different parts and places of the mountain, each thinking or assuming, their portion of the mountain is the wisest and best, truest and more comprehensive.

Is there more to the mountain, though, then the replay of West and East, Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism-Protestantism? Are there parts of the faith mountain that have been inhabited for centuries, been largely ignored but have been, in the last few decades, rediscovered? This is where, I think, the rediscovery of Syriac Christianity comes to the fore. The yeoman’s labour of Professor Sebastion Brock, more than most, has done much to restore and point to communities on the mountain that are part of the larger but often forgotten faith family. The publication of The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (1987) opened up for many a mother lode and gold mine of faith, Brock doing both the introduction and translation. It is significant that The Syriac Fathers by published by Cistercian Publications (Roman Catholic)  Some of the publications by Brock on Syriac Christianity have been also published by the Sisters of the Love of God and Fairacres Press (Anglican publishing). The interest by Roman Catholics and Anglicans, at a higher and more irenical level, has done much to chart routes and pathways to the Syriac tradition and its oft-forgotten heritage. The growing interest and turn to the classical tradition of faith (Patristic era) is now rounding the mountain to sections on it, for centuries hidden from western and eastern forms of Christianity. Many are those more than keen to visit and learn from their fuller family.

I have been fortunate to be in contact with Sebastion Brock and, equally grateful, to be teaching four courses on Syriac Christianity in 2020-2021. Indeed, there is more to the mountain to yet see and as we hold the way-finder in our hands and hearts, minds and imaginations, this much more on the mountain cannot but help to enrich, deepen and mature our faith journeys.

amor vincit omnia

Ron Dart      

Instead of Violence: Lessons from Leipzig, Germany, October 9, 1989 - Roger J. Newell

Instead of Violence:
Lessons from Leipzig, Germany, October 9, 1989

A few years ago I wrote a book about the privilege of taking some students to Leipzig, Germany, where we spoke with one of the leaders of the peace prayers movement which helped bring down the Communist Government in the former East Germany.  The leader, a Lutheran Pastor with the unlikely name of Christian Führer, described to us in unforgettable words key moments leading up to the night of Monday, October 9, 1989, when decades of accumulated civil grievances combined improbably with years of weekly gatherings known as “prayers for peace” (Friedensgebet) in which readings from the Sermon on the Mount played a central role.

On the night of Monday, October 9, 1989, 70,000 citizens of Leipzig peacefully walked the ring road encircling the city, many holding candles, knowing full well that along the streets were hundreds of police and soldiers armed with live ammunition. The police had been sent to end the weekly protests once and for all, because from the government’s perspective, they were destabilizing the nation.  As people walked, many chanting  “We are the People” and “No violence,” something truly remarkable happened: no angry protester threw a stone; no nervous soldier fired a shot.  Instead, groups of demonstrators engaged the police and military in respectful conversations as they walked the ring road till nearly midnight when the crowd peacefully went home. There were no winners or losers. Neither side lost face. Not a window was broken. There was just a tremendous feeling of relief. That night East Germany was transformed by a peaceful revolution. A month later the Berlin Wall came down--peacefully.

All these events were in stark contrast to the tragedy only five months earlier in China’s Tiananmen Square when soldiers opened fire on a large demonstration and many were killed. Instead, on October 9 in Leipzig police and protesters collectively wove a collaborative web of non-violence, as demonstrators took the message of waging peace out of the church sanctuary and onto the streets.  After that night, even though demonstrations swept the nation, there was no violence.  In a matter of weeks, the government stood down while a caretaker government arranged for the country’s first and finally free and fair election.  On March 18, 1990, the party advocating early reunification with West Germany won a clear victory at the polls.  One of its youthful members was a young Chemistry researcher named Angela Merkel, whose father was also an East German pastor.