Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Ron Dart's 'The Spirituality of John Cassian' - Reflections by Denys Scully

The Spirituality of John Cassian was written by Ron Samuel Dart, an Anglican layman from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.  Dart’s 2006 book is a published rework of his Master’s thesis, earned from Regent College in 1981.  (After his first M.A. Dart earned a second from the University of British Columbia, completing then a thesis on “Origen and Anthony,” two men who played a key role in Cassian’s life and ministry.)  Dart is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at University of the Fraser Valley in BC.  He is a prolific writer and teacher who regularly engages the “politics” of church and society in a refreshing but classical manner.  In his personal life Dart commonly exerts his Anglo-Catholic belief and commitment through his mentoring and ecumenical efforts as well as his contemplative practices.  He is also a Thomas Merton scholar, a poet and a mountaineering expert and instructor.  He says clearly in the Preface that he wrote his book out of a commitment to the Church Fathers’ “…more mystical, contemplative and existential way of doing theology in opposition to a more rationalist, confessional and scholastic way of doing theology that dominated much of the Western Tradition” (1).  He was also drawn to Cassian’s “…wise, sane and ecumenical…” thought and theology that brought together the best and wisest of the patristic East and West “…in a transformative way” (2-3).

Psalm 2 -- A Sermon by Josh Giesbrecht

Psalm 2

The Reign of the LORD’S Anointed.

 ¹ Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
² The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,
³ “Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”

 ⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.
⁵ Then He will speak to them in His anger
And terrify them in His fury, saying,
⁶ “But as for Me, I have installed My King
Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”

 ⁷ “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD:
He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
⁸ ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
⁹ ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”

 ¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
¹¹ Worship the LORD with ^[l]reverence
And rejoice with trembling.
¹² Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

What is this psalm saying?

• The Messiah will rule over the earth
• God is not threatened by our kings and empires

Great! But then it also seems to say:

• When we rebel against God, he is furious with us
• If we don’t acknowledge the Messiah we will “perish in the way” of his anger

How One Book Can Change Our Contemplative Posture in the World -- Review by Jeff Imbach

F.S. Michaels’ book, Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything, is a small, very accessible, yet profoundly moving description of the impact of the ascendancy of the Economic Story over other stories we have always taken for granted in our society.  A resident of B.C., Michaels was succinct and clear enough to be the 2011 winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.  I mentioned the book in a previous essay  and thought it might be helpful to come back to the book more carefully. 

A monoculture is the underlying belief structure and values for decision-making that is based on one over-arching master story. Medieval Europe was a monoculture based on religion.  Religion determined decisions that affected all areas of life.  We now live in a Economic Monoculture that determines everything on the basis of economics. 

Eye-Deep in Lies -- Brian Zahnd

Eye-Deep In Lies
by Blindman At The Gate

Why is it that if we dare to envision a world without war
(A hope offered humanity by the prophet Isaiah bar Amoz)
We’re considered hopelessly naïve or even treasonous?

Why is it that everyone knows Jesus taught the way of nonviolence
(Just read the Sermon on the Mount and you’ll see what I mean)
Except those who most vociferously call themselves Christians?

Why is it that a clear renunciation of war is called cowardly
(Suggest killing enemies is not the way and see what happens)
When following the crowd has never required any courage?

Why is it we’re suspicious of those called peacemakers
(Ask brave Daniel Ellsberg, he’ll tell you all about it)
When the One we worship is called the Prince of Peace?

Why is it we believe the coming of Christ will bring the reign of peace
(For we do confess that someday the lion will lay down with the lamb)
But in the mean time act as if we must preserve war as long as possible?

Why are those who renounce war and embrace peace called stupid
(“The poor dolts don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain”)
When Einstein said, “I’m not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist”?

Why am I even bothering to talk about the topic of peace
(“Shouldn’t he be preaching the gospel or something?”)
When I know good and well it will only cause me grief?

A fellow who goes by the weird name Blindman at the Gate composed this brief meditation after learning that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs reports that 18 combat veterans commit suicide every day.

(The painting is Isaiah by Marc Chagall)

 

A Great than Solomon -- compiled by Brian Zahnd

A Greater Than Solomon - Matthew 12:42

Ecclesiastes is a divine revelation of the vanity, futility, emptiness and absurdity of life apart from a relationship with the living God. Ecclesiastes it is the natural, earthly wisdom of the sages and the philosophers—(Solomon, Socrates, Siddhartha and Schopenhauer)—it is not the greater wisdom of the Son of God.

Question # 1: Is life meaningless or is there a purpose?

Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

Everything is meaningless, says the Teacher

Jesus (John 18:37)

You say that I am a king and you are right.

I was born for this purpose.

I came to bring truth into the world.

Everyone who loves truth hears my voice.

A Contemplative Response To Our Present Economic Super-Agenda -- Jeff Imbach

A Contemplative Response To Our Present Economic Super-Agenda

“When civilizations start to die they go insane.”  So begins a recent piece by Chris Hedges.  “Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt,” he says. “Let the temperatures rise.  Let the air, soil and water be poisoned.  Let the forests die.  Let the seas be emptied of life.  Let one useless war after another be waged.  Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft.  Reality, at the end, gets unplugged.”  Hedges argues that the quest by a bankrupt elite in the final days of empire to accumulate greater and greater wealth in the face of less and less to exploit leads to mounting repression, increased human suffering, a collapse of infrastructure and, finally, collective death.

Review of Anna Yin's 'Wings Toward Sunlight: Poems' -- by Ron Dart

Anna Yin,  Wings Toward Sunlight: Poems, 2011

We had the experience but missed the meaning. -- T.S. Eliot

There is poetry that speaks to the head but never touches the deeper recesses of the heart, and there is poetry that massages the heart but does not really challenge the probing and questioning mind. There is poetry that is so abstract that the seeking soul can become lost in an inner or historic maze, and there is poetry that evokes and awakens, in a tender and suggestive way, the deeper longings of the human soul. Wings Toward Sunlight is poetry of the latter kind. But, there must be an inner quietness and attentiveness to receive the insights offered.

Review of Milton Acorn: In a Springtime Instant -- by Ron Dart

Milton Acorn: In A Springtime Instant: Selected Poems, James Deahl (ed.), 2012.

Milton Acorn (1923-1986) was the most dynamic, controversial and prophetic Canadian Anglican political poet in the latter half of the 20^th century. Acorn was a poet who spoke to the people of Canada and did so in an accessible and not to be forgotten manner. The fact that Acorn was awarded by significant Canadian poets, the Peoples Poet Award in 1970 and the GG Award in 1975 speaks its own convincing language. Who was this poet who offended the trendy left by taking a definite stand on the Pro-Life issue yet offended the political right by opposing capitalism, militarism and American imperialism? Who was this unique Canadian nationalist who flirted with the ideological left but when day was a done was a conscious Red Tory?  Who was this High Church Anglican that was convinced that the purpose and end of the grandeur of the liturgy was justice and peace in the streets and for the working class people? Who was this herald and pioneer in the 1950s of the ecological movement?

Anatheism: Returning to God after God -- Ideas (CBC radio) with Richard Kearney

Public discussion of religion tends to polarize between two extremes: religious fundamentalism, and the aggressive atheism of such writers as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But much of what people actually believe falls somewhere in between. It is subtler and more tentative. David Cayley explores the work of five thinkers whose recent books have charted new paths for religion. Part 1: Richard Kearney,(Anatheism: Returning to God After God).

To download the interview, click here.

 

The Evangelical Sanhedrin: Weighed and Found Wanting by Ron Dart

The National Association of Evangelicals was formed in 1942, and built into the mandate of such an Association was a distinct way of understanding what it meant to be an evangelical and Christian.

Such an organizational vision (and those who defended it) formed what can be called the Evangelical Sanhedrin. Those who dared to differ with such a vision were not granted a seat with the elders of the tribe. Needless to say, the meaning of ‘evangelical’ has varied since 1942 (as it did before 1942), but there are tendencies that are still held with utmost tenacity. The Sanhedrin, like threatened yaks, will circle round one another if their agenda is questioned. But, does the evangelical Sanhedrin adequately, faithfully or comprehensively reflect the fullness of the Great Christian Tradition?

North American OPF Conference 2012

Acceptance is the Answer -- A Clarion Meditation

1. Start with meditating on this statement: "It is what it is."

This statement originates with Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, 1518, where he says,

“19. That per­son does not deserve to be called a the­olo­gian who looks upon the invis­i­ble things of God as though they were clearly per­cep­ti­ble in those things which have actu­ally hap­pened [Rom. 1:20].

“20. He deserves to be called a the­olo­gian, how­ever, who com­pre­hends the vis­i­ble and man­i­fest things of God seen through suf­fer­ing and the cross.

“21. A the­olo­gian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A the­olo­gian of the cross calls the thing what it actu­ally is … [or in some translations, 'says that a thing is what it is.']

2. Pray the serenity prayer. Here is the full original version:

The Full Original Copy of the Serenity Prayer
by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

God give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

3. Read a this chapter from the AA Big Book:

Acceptance was the Answer:

Online here: http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_theystoppedintime16.pdf

4. Further reading: Byron Katie, 'Loving What Is.'

Mary and Martha -- In Solitary Confinement -- by Neaners

This is the first of several reflections Neaners had on the story of Mary and Martha in the gospel of Luke. From his context, he reads the familiar story not as the old tension between action vs. contemplation, busyness vs. prayer, but competition vs. unity at Jesus' feet. 

May these prison letters bless you and continue to bring us together.

-------

You know that story in the Bible where two girls are hiding Jesus (I think it’s Jesus), but one is cooking y cleaning while the other one is sitting down listening to him? Then the other one gets upset y tells Jesus something like to tell the other girl to help her or algo. I can’t find it in the Bible. I hope you know which one I’m talking about. But that to me is kinda what you say about not getting too busy making clear divisions between different ministries, getting them all divided, making more of the names than the mission. What do you think?

 In that one story it reminds me of a lot of things. The one sister is trying so hard to impress Jesus or whoever by cooking y cleanin’. People try so hard to out-do one another.  I wanna be like the other girl who sits there and is listening to Jesus, not caring about anything else but him and his clecha [training, teaching].

That’s how I wanna be. I don’t give a fuck if I’m wearing a Gang-Out Tshirt or a Tierra Nueva Tshirt or a GodSide Tshirt [different ministry projects who I’ve helped connect him with] or a blank white Tshirt. I’ll wear them all, it doesn’t matter. I’m gonna do what I gotta do to get other homies the real help they need and follow what Jesus is saying. 

You feel me homie?

 

Jesus is Lord and death is not -- Brad Jersak

A friend recently asked to respond to the following statement:

Through the resurrection, Jesus conquered and disempowered death, but he also reclaimed death as a natural blessing to the rhythm of life and shows us that it is possible to befriend it. When we live inside the resurrection even death is reclaimed as friend.

As I pondered this proposal throughout the Passion Week and especially on Easter Sunday, this flood of thoughts came up for considertion and meditation:

I have the same reservations about calling death a friend. But I think it's worth taking a scalpel to this statement for a bit to see where we might explore the way Christ's work changed not only our relationship to death, but changed the nature of death itself. So I want to ask first, how is this not true, and then, how is this true, and finally, how we might approach dying and death afresh in the aftermath of the Resurrection.

So first, and easiest, how or why is this statement not true? The most obvious point is that Paul calls death an enemy, and in fact, the last enemy to be destroyed, which is to say, it will remain an enemy until the final day. 

Resurrection Here and Now by Brian Zahnds

Resurrection Here and Now

Resurrection Here and Now

An Easter Monday Meditation

On that first Easter morning God’s new world began. The old world is still with us, still dying, but the new world is here too; the age to come has already begun!

Or as G.K. Chesterton put it…

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.

But what of it? Or as Francis Schaeffer might put the question, how should we then live?

Dateline Bethlehem: Christ at the Checkpoint Pt 3 -- by Brad Jersak

"The risk is that the Holy Land is becoming a 'spiritual Disneyland.'"—Fouad Twal, Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem

Like millions of others throughout the centuries—Jewish, Muslim and Christian—I saw my trip to the Holy Land as a spiritual pilgrimage. Many who go hope that by visiting key sites and religious shrines of biblical events they will have a profound encounter with the God of their faith. Christians of all traditions line up for hours to kiss the spots where Jesus was born, died and buried. They pay to be baptized in the Jordan. They sing, pray, and walk in procession carrying crosses along the Via Dolorosa. Some experience a touch of the divine as they kneel in devotion in sacred space, tears rolling down their cheeks. Others wait in vain for their magical moment, deeply disappointed by the hollow plastic carrot they've chased halfway across the globe to this 'spiritual Disneyland.'

Review of Dennis Gruending's 'Pulpit and Politics' -- by Ron Dart

Review of Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life, 2011. By Ron Dart.

I have taught Ideology and Politics for many years, and the dominant ideology that has often shaped how politics and ideology is taught at university is secularism. Such an approach to the teaching of ideology and politics tends to either ignore or marginalize religion. There has been a decided turn by some in the last few years (text books are catching up with such a reality) to both recognize the importance of religion and politics and how ideology, religion and politics inform one another. Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life takes plough to hard soul in this emerging area of research and reflection within the Canadian context. Needless to say, there has been plenty of work done in this area in the USA.

Review of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s "Justice, rights and wrongs" by Henk Smidstra

Book Review by Henk Smidstra on Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book, Justice: rights and wrongs, Princeton University Press. 2008

I found this book by Nicholas Wolterstorff truly relevant in its discussion of the topic of discussion: justice, justice as inherent rights; it was at the same time difficult to read, often abstract and philosophical. The author writes the book to give clarity to this theory of justice, moved by memories of unresolved pain and suffering of injustice that he has seen on many victims’ faces as he worked on international human rights projects.  Wolterstorff is a well published author and professor of Philosophy of a Reformed tradition of thought (Reformed epistemology) that I embrace; this of course added motivation for my delving into this book.  Wolterstorff wishes, not to argue from certitudes, but to encourage dialogic pluralism on this vital topic of justice central to Scripture, and central to human experience. Wolterstorff explains: “My speaking up for the wronged of the world takes the form of this book, of doing what I can to undermine those frameworks of conviction that prevent us from acknowledging that the other [human being] comes before us bearing a claim on us, and offering an alternative framework, one that opens us up to such acknowledgment (p. IX).  Wolterstorff’s book is thus an elaboration of his framework for justice which he names, justice as inherent rights, and he wishes to “undermine” confidence in a popular understanding of justice as right order.  Wolterstorff will put his emphasis for the grounding of his theory of justice on the inherent value of human beings; and right order theorists place primary grounding on a “matrix…. of divine, natural, and human laws or objective obligations  for the ordering justice of political community” (p.29). The issue of grounding is in focus throughout the book.

To Mend the World by Brian Zahnd

To Mend the World
by Brian Zahnd

November 9, 1938 resides in the catalog of human crimes as Kristallnacht—The Night of Broken Glass. On that dreadful night when Nazi storm troopers smashed, ransacked, burned, and destroyed Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses throughout Germany, Emil Fackenheim was among the thirty thousand Jewish men arrested and taken to concentration camps. Through an improbable twist of fate the twenty-two year old Fackenheim managed to escape the Sachenhausen concentration camp and was eventually able to get out of Nazi Germany. Following the war he made his way to Canada where he became a prominent Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi. In 1982 Fackenheim wrote To Mend the World, an influential book on post Holocaust Jewish thought. The title comes from the Jewish theological concept of tikkun olam—“repairing the world.” Tikkun olam is the idea that though the world is broken, it is not beyond repair—that it’s God’s intention to work through humanity in order to repair his creation.

Honduras Update: Contending for life in a climate of death -- by Bob Ekblad

When Gracie and I moved to Honduras in July 1982 the country was considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.  Wars raged in the region and death-squad violence created a climate of terror.  Over the last 30 years we’ve witnessed the power of God’s love at work in individuals and communities, bringing visible relief through increased production, water projects, improved health, reconciliation between enemies, discovery of the good news in Scripture and healing.  Right now the “not yet” of Jesus’ Kingdom has been in my face as violence increases in a climate of near anarchy.  I have been accompanying one of my closest friends, Angel David, from a distance by phone as he’s walked through terrors and deep sadness in this seemingly interminable valley of the shadow of death.   
 
The last six weeks in Honduras have been some of the darkest after a prison fire in our department capital Comayagua on February 15 burnt over 400 inmates to death.  The next day Tierra Nueva’s past president Paco and his wife Gloria buried their 33-year-old son Edwin who suddenly fell sick after a flare up of aplastic anemia that had been in remission for 13 years.  Back in 1999 Tierra Nueva had organized a big fund-raiser to pay for medical treatment and prayer campaign, which brought this disease into remission... until last month. 
 
In the midst of all this pain it has become once again clear that God’s preferred way of coming close to human suffering is a mediated way—through human beings who themselves come close: Jesus, me, you—Christ’s body, the church.

God Sent Snakes - Poem by Jeff Imbach

God Sent Snakes
(Numbers 14)

God sent snakes.
 
Killed the bastards
            for complaining
 
just because their
            great, epic
            pilgrimage
            became
inconvenient.
 
What did they expect?
 
I can hear them now:
 
“We didn’t sign up for 
food shortage.
 
We anticipated a triumphant procession
            into a plush and plenty
                        freedom.
 
We had enough suffering
            in the Old Country”

I don’t blame God, really.
            At least,
            I can feel my own vindictive
            bile rise when they
 
bitch like condo owners at an AGM.
 
But come now, God! Let us reason together;
 
I want to let go of my judgmental
                                    retaliation.
 
                        And you ...
 
Are you so high and mighty that you can
                        just off anyone who complains
                        because they are
                                    threatened with starvation?
C’mon!
 
Why should I trust you with
            my very guts
                        if I can’t even
 
whimper
occasionally?

 

Razor Wire and Piggy Back Rides: A Story out of Solitary with Holly Braun

Friends,

Neaners finally got to hold his daughters at his first visit out of solitary confinement last month. Here is the story, as written up by Tierra Nueva staff member Holly Braun, who drove his daughters across Washington State to see him in prison.

C

Razor Wire and Piggy Back Rides

by Holly Braun 

I met Neaners just over a year ago. The tattooed homie who first ordained Chris Hoke as “Pastor of Homies” wrote a letter from prison asking me if I would teach him how to farm. By mail. He has a vision for ministry to other kids caught in gangs when he gets out, a vision that includes a small farm.

Hellbound? Press Release

TEASER TRAILER RELEASE THIS WEEK OFFERS FIRST LOOK AT THIS COMPELLING AND CONTROVERSIAL FILM

 

Hellbound? Teaser Trailer 1080 from Darren Hull Studios Inc. on Vimeo.

Hellbound?, a much-anticipated feature-length documentary, is an in-depth look at today’s highly contentious debate over the Christian doctrine of eternal punishment. Does hell really exist, and if so, what factors determine who ends up there? The release of a teaser trailer for Hellbound? this week offers a first look at this provocative film, which will hit theaters across North America in September 2012 through a combination of major metropolitan area theatrical runs and special event screenings.

Dateline Bethlehem: Christ at the Checkpoint -- by Brad Jersak

Brad Jersak has just returned from "Christ at the Checkpoint" —a conference sponsored by Bethlehem Bible College. On assignment for PTM, Brad here files his reactions just as he prepares to leave this volatile region.

This Christ at the Checkpoint report comes as my rich and intense week in Bethlehem winds down. I'm writing while the bombardment of charged experiences, emotional interviews, and eyewitness stimuli churns raw and semi-processed in my heart. Greetings in Jesus' name less than one mile from where our Saviour was born in this not-so-quiet, yet precious town.

The Lord's simple instruction for me was just these words: "surrendered lenses." We all see the world through our own cultural and religious lenses. These often blur our vision of reality, so I pray for Spirit-washed lenses to sharpen my focus and cleanse pre-conceived assumptions about the situation here. I have tried to listen attentively and non-judgmentally to the people's hearts and to find Jesus amidst a cacophony of conflicting narratives. 

For the remainder of this report, click here.

 

 

The Naked Anabaptist - discussion and review with Archbishop Lazar Puhalo and Ron Dart

 

Stuart Murray's The Naked Anabaptist:
The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith (2010)
Review by Ron Dart

The main title is catchy, the subtitle alluring and inviting. What are naked Anabaptists and who does not want a radical faith? The invitation is there. Will the call of the Neo-Anabaptists be heeded? Surely, the time has come to leave, mostly, a 2000 year (except the Anabaptists and a few other dissidents) view of Christendom and imperial Christianity and enter the challenges of the Post-Christendom era and ethos. But, wait---is it that simple?

An Immodest Proposal by James R. Inglis

An Immodest Proposal:

For preventing the elderly in Canada from being a burden to their families or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.

By James Robert Inglis

With apologies to Jonathan Swift (Satire Alert!)

I am saddened as I stroll through the grocery stores or malls on the weekend. Everywhere one looks, in every nook and cranny seems to be the lurking object often referred to as the “senior”.  The senior can often be observed on their own, but are more likely to be found in packs of three or four. Those tasked with earning an honest living must navigate through their masses as they occupy all available seating or shuffle down the grocery aisles restricting the flow of earnest shoppers with important tasks to accomplish.

Praying For Justice In A Contemplative Conundrum by Jeff Imbach

Some Reflections Of Praying For Justice In A Contemplative Conundrum

How do I pray contemplatively the enormous structural implications of our current economic and political realities?  I want to be hopeful and resist cynicism.  I want to be trusting and not be filled with fear about the economically driven political policies and decisions that are becoming almost hard-wired into the system.  I want to walk with you, my Love.

How do I pray contemplatively from my heart and with my actions as I watch the present unfolding of our world?

Psalm 62:8, “O my people, trust in God at all times.  Pour out your heart to the Lord, for God is our refuge.”

OK then Loving One, let me pour out my heart to you. 

Praying For Justice In A Contemplative Conundrum by Jeff Imbach

Some Reflections Of Praying For Justice In A Contemplative Conundrum

How do I pray contemplatively the enormous structural implications of our current economic and political realities?  I want to be hopeful and resist cynicism.  I want to be trusting and not be filled with fear about the economically driven political policies and decisions that are becoming almost hard-wired into the system.  I want to walk with you, my Love.

How do I pray contemplatively from my heart and with my actions as I watch the present unfolding of our world?

Psalm 62:8, “O my people, trust in God at all times.  Pour out your heart to the Lord, for God is our refuge.”

OK then Loving One, let me pour out my heart to you. 

Treasures in the Streets - Notes from Solitary Confinement - with Chris Hoke and Neaners

Friends,

One of the highest hopes for ministries among the outcast is that men and women would discover their own value. 

For instance, in the massive trash dumps of Guatemala City there are hundreds of despised poor men and women that pick through the rubble each day to survive. Most citizens refer to these filthy lives as subhuman "scavengers." People on the margins often internalize these labels. "Wetback." "Convict." "Illegal." "Criminal." They see themselves as having no value, and often live accordingly.  But a ministry there in the Guatemalan dump, seeking to love the unwanted, calls the lives they find in the wreckage "treasures" instead. The heart of God inverts most of our world's values.

The problem, though, is trying to help the unwanted internalize their new value. Sure, the ministry workers see them as "treasures," but when do the despised discover themselves to be so?

Stephen Leacock: Bred in the Bone by Ron Dart

He (Leacock) was more famous than this country -- Don Herron

It is the 100th anniversary in 2012 of one of the classics of Canadian literature. Many do not read Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town these days, but when the missive was published in 1912, Leacock had most Canadians holding both their sides in laughter. Leacock became, in many ways, a pioneer of the distinctive Canadian genre of irony and humour, and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town was published in many editions. When Leacock died in late March 1944, The New York Herald Tribune suggested that “Stephen Leacock, surely, was the First Citizen of Canada”--indeed, high words of praise for an Anglican, political economist, raconteur and literary genius.

Stephen Leacock: A Centennial Celebration by Ron Dart

 [Leacock] was more famous than this country. -- Don Herron

In Canada, I belong to the Conservative party. -- Stephen Leacock

At McGill, as at Ottawa Collegiate, I was blessed with teachers. Stephen Leacock, head of the department of Economics and Political Science, was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. He was an ardent conservative and fierce Canadian nationalist. -- Eugene Forsey

Political Science, then, deals with the state; it is, in short, as it is often termed, the “theory of the state”. -- Stephen Leacock, Elements of Political Science (1906)

Who was Stephen Leacock, as a thinker and activist, before the publication of his best selling books of humour such as Literary Lapses (1910), Nonsense Novels (1911), Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), Behind the Beyond (1913) and Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich (1914)? There is no doubt that Leacock was launched in a certain direction with these bumper crop book sales. He established himself as the central writer in Canada with these slim missives. But, there is more to the tale to tell. Leacock was 41 years of age when Literary Lapses left the publishing tarmac in 1910. What had he thought and written before 1910?

Cut Off--from the Land and the Body: Note from Solitary Confinement

Friends,

Thank you for praying these past months and reading these letters from a man many of you have never met, one of thousands of men and women warehoused in prison cells across our land. This is special--you praying for a guy from another world and race and background, reading his thoughts from that cell. Catholics used to use a term more often, The Mystical Body of Christ. When that body, our body, grows, we might not feel it immediately, but the new member grafted into feels the whooooosh of new life flooding in, the sense of connectedness to something bigger.

Neaners (José Israel Garcia) has helped me understand better what that feels like. And what it demands. Of both him and us. For him, it means letting himself fully belong to a new body, not the Sureño gang identity (though it's hard to technically shed, like one of us shredding up our passports). That said, Neaners has recently written that he no longer wants to use that street name he's worn for years. 

I was thinking of my name Neaners and I wanna go by Nini instead.  

I usually hear people close to me call me Nini, like when I was a little boy. 

But I wanna let “Neaners” rest.

It challenges me to consider what parts of my identity I might "let rest," that I no longer need as I belong to something greater.

Below is a reflection of Nini's on what it is to belong to a new Body.

-----------------------

Cut Off: the Land and the Body

The other day I was reading Deuteronomy 11:13-23 and it was talking about the rain and the land. God giving rain so the harvest will be good, et. But reading of this reminded me of when Paul starts talking about the body—saying how’s the hand gonna tell the ear “we don’t need you.” How we gonna hear? Or the eye…something like that. Me entiendes? Which verse am I talking about? Well, anyway, that verse about the body somehow got me thinking about Alex, the one they call “Dirty” on the streets, and Nick Silva, in and out of hospitals and drug treatment centers. 

 We’re all a body, you, me and Nick y Alex. I know that this desire to help—or these homies helping me—has been in my heart for months. 

So as I was reading Deut, it came to me: like, you guys are God showering us with rain to grow. By showering us love, writing, answering phone calls and so on, and most importantly, by believing in us. We’re like the scums of this world, rotten roots, dried out plants. That’s why homies love you all, dogg. Because you’re not even caring what people in society say—judges, lawyers, parole officers or juras [police].

I know you’ve had people tell you que I wasn’t ready or that I was playing you because I’m just doing jail talk or that Alex is a junkie, that Nick is a fuckup. And you’ve also heard us give up on ourselves over and over again, not knowing what to do. But you’ve always given us hope, even if we fall back, you’ll tell us something that’ll bring us together.

We may be sick, but you refuse to let us get “cut off.” That’s what the verse about the land, and then the body made me think of.

Oh, homie, I found it. 1 Corinthians 12:14-26. That’s tight, bud.

 

AN IMPOSSIBLE BIBLE? Review by Joe Beach

AN IMPOSSIBLE BIBLE?   by Joe Beach

I recently read a book that I just couldn’t put down. Book lovers know what I mean.  You glance at a book, you pick it up, peruse it, start reading it, and simply cancel all other reading until you’ve finished. Worse, when you do finish, you’re, sort of, sad that it ends – the same way you feel at the end of a great movie or a great meal.  Sometimes, though, these same books (or movies or meals) surprise you by being somewhat uncomfortable at first. Later, you end up enjoying them – even if you’re still not totally “sure” about what you think. 

That book was Christian Smith’s, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. You can probably already tell that I liked the book and, for the most part, agreed with its proposal. You can also probably tell, from the subtitle of that book, that Dr. Smith’s book is a critique and that the target of his critique is something called “Biblicism.” The subject of this book is, obviously, the Holy Bible – the Holy Scriptures of the Christian Church – and how we should read it. 

Satan and Empire -- by Brian Zahnd

by BRIAN ZAHND on JANUARY 25, 2012

Satan and Empire

When asked to identify the origin of Satan we are commonly directed to Isaiah 14. This is the passage where the King of Babylon is called Lucifer (Day Star) and described as “fallen from heaven” after coveting the throne of God.  But what should be readily apparent is that Isaiah is giving us a prophetic critique of empire by using the king of Babylon as a personification for the whole imperial project. This is quite clear from a simple reading of the text. Throughout Scripture (and especially in the book of Revelation) Babylon remains a prophetic symbol of empire and the kingdom of Satan.

Here are a few thoughts from Isaiah 14…

"It Is Completely Fire" - poetry by Katie Kilcup

"It is Completely Fire" Katie Kilcup

Icon: Maximos the Confessor

The Made Makers 

We are the made makers,

the makers of the made.

We cannot make geese

or the infinite web of feathers

and wind tangled in blades

of light,

or thickets of slight sun

wavering in underwater labyrinths.

 

We make the second made,

feather pillows and forks,

skyscrapers and silly-putty.

The given we have taken

and baked in the furnace mind,

until the tangle of the original

is laid straight in rulers,

clocks, kingdoms.

 

We are the puppet makers,

imitators all.

The grid of intention cages us,

beautiful parrots, glorious in color and song,

our language longs for height.

We are the made making,

furious with brows furrowed,

the sea escapes our cups. 

From the Lowest Pit: A Psalm from Solitary - by Neaners, with Chris Hoke

I confess I've always had trouble appreciating the Psalms. Though there's some lines that I cherish, I can get distracted by how the psalm can quickly turn into a rant--against all the enemies and evildoers, cursing them with violence sometimes, touting the singer's own innocence and righteousness. 

My mentor Bob would laugh and give me a hard time about this: "Chris, you're a songwriter and a worship leader--how can you not like the Psalms? They're songs, man, prayers. They're written by sinful people like us crying out, uncensored. It's cool that the Bible welcomes human prayers like ours. Just think of the guys in jail we love so much, how they could relate to the psalmists' raw cries." Bob knew how to bring me back to a text.

So below is a glimpse of one man in the pit Nini--when he was still in solitary confinement--relating to the Bibles' poetry of lament. Then, a sample of his own rap/psalm he sent me last week.

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part IV - Ron Dart

            Deification expresses human salvation as in inward process

            of transformation experienced within the life of the Church

           and leading to mystical union with God. As St. Basil put it, man

           is nothing less than a creature that has received the order to

           become god.                                              Chris Jensen

                                                         Road to Emmaus:  Vol.VIII, No. 2 (#29)

Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture should be warmly congratulated and generously supported for their willingness to ponder the affinities between C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition. I have, in a previous article, reflected on the Road to Emmaus article-interview with Herman Middleton, ‘An Old Western Man: C.S. Lewis in Light of Orthodox Christianity’

(Vol. VIII, No. 1 # 28). I have also commented on the insights and problems of Timothy Ware’s article on Lewis as an anonymous or implicit Orthodox that was published in Sobornost (the same article was also published with much the same content in The Pilgrim’s Guide: C.S. Lewis and the Art of Witness: 1998). The fact Road to Emmaus has dealt with two articles on Lewis is more than worth noting.

Erasmus and the Fathers - with Ron Dart and Archbishop Puhalo

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part III -- Ron Dart

Again and again we have found that C.S. Lewis articulates a vision of Christian truth which a member of the Orthodox Church can whole heartedly endorse. His starting-point may be that of a Western Christian, but repeatedly his conclusions are Orthodox, with a large as well as a small ‘o’.

-- Bishop Timothy Ware 

Bishop Timothy Ware (Kallistos of Diokleia) gave a lecture to the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society on November 29^th 1994. The lecture was called ‘C.S. Lewis: an anonymous Orthodox’? The lecture was then published in Sobornost (the flagship magazine for the Society St. Alban and St. Sergius) in 1995. The idea that Lewis might be an anonymous Orthodox was, as Ware mentioned, suggested by a ‘senior Greek bishop from Constantinople’. The fact that Ware flags the pointer with a question mark is a hint and way into this lecture turned published article.

God's Book -- A spiritual exercise -- Murray Dueck

The Book

Have you ever peeked into someone's journal when they weren't looking: Possibly hoping to find out what they secretly thought about you? What was your heart looking for?  Connection, love, understanding, affirmation, intimacy...maybe all of the above? God loves that inquisitive excitement! Or at least when it comes to peaking in one particular book - His journal of our lives.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

 Psalm 139:16-18

Epiphany unplugged by Henry Smidstra

Old fashioned, I still prefer to send Christmas cards by snail mail. This year again I had to run out to the dollar store, and get some more cards; I quickly chose some nice ones, of the three wise men  on their camels trudging along in the desert … a card made in China to boot.  Later as I open my mail, what did I see? - A colourful Christmas card picturing three wise men kneeling before the baby in the manger.  I reflect on the significance of the small pericope in Matthew’s version of the “Christmas Story”, and on how it is portrayed in some of the romanticised and commercialized depictions of it. For me, the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem would not be complete but for this significant event, of the Epiphany as told by Matthew. We are called to attention that East and West have met and embraced, and from the East that we need to heed the message of the significance of the miracle of the incarnation of God and humanity, of the real “estate” of Jesus.

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part II -- by Ron Dart

For the most part, I find he (Lewis) is very close to Orthodoxy….Through this honest search, he came to many positions that the Orthodox Fathers hold as well. --Herman Middleton         

ROAD TO EMMAUS is a Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture, and it began in 2000. Many is the fine article that have emerged from ROAD TO EMMAUS, and ‘An Old Western Man: C.S. Lewis in Light of Orthodox Christianity’ (Vol. VIII, No. 1: #28) is more than worth the read. The article is done in an interview style between the editor of ROAD TO EMMAUS and Herman Middleton. Middleton has walked a creative path—a graduate of Wheaton College (Vatican of the American Evangelical Tradition and home of Lewis archives), post- Wheaton life as a theology student in Thessalonica Greece, author of the Orthodox classic, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit’ and at the time of the interview, doing doctoral studies on C.S. Lewis from an Orthodox perspective. Middleton is the perfect person, therefore, to reflect on Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition.

What are some of the reasons those committed to the Orthodox Tradition might be interested in Lewis?

"For the Peace from Above" - Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

Displaced Childhoods by Partners Relief & Development

Dear Clarion readers,

Partners Relief & Development Canada and Cielo Pictures are proud to present the television debut of Displaced Childhoods airing on CTV Calgary on December 25th at 6-7pm and again on January 2nd at 5-6pm.

 

Displaced Childhoods takes a look at life for families who live in the world's longest currently running civil war. Interviews from men, women and children who have had to flee fighting and systemic human rights abuses in three of Burma's ethnic states share their stories with us and we learn how a small agency, Partners Relief & Development is helping them. 

I hope you will join us for this great and for those outside of Southern Alberta check to see if your cable/satellite package carries CTV Calgary and join us for this amazing story.

*Remember to set your PVR to record this amazing documentary, especially if you are unable to view it at those times over the holidays.

I want to thank you for all your support of our work as we show God's love to the people of Burma and I hope that your holidays are full of family, fun and rest.

Merry Christmas,

Greg Toews

National Director

 

What's in the Waiting - Christmas Message by Eden Jersak

What’s in the Waiting? by Eden Jersak

Introduction

            Do you remember having to wait as a kid for Christmas?  Oh my!  The sheer torture of the endless days and weeks leading up to that most amazing morning with gifts and goodies, and toys and games! As a young child, my brother and I shared a room, and between the two of us, we could hardly bare the time after being tucked into bed on Christmas Eve and waking up on Christmas morning.  I was an early riser anyway, quite often the first one up in the house, even on a school day, but on Christmas, it was impossible to wait until 6:00.

            I would get out of my bed, make my bed (just to cover all the bases), then I would shake my brother awake, just so I had an accomplice, and we would tip toe down the hallway to peak into the livingroom, where the tree was alight, and the presents galore.  I remember one Christmas being amazed at the sheer volume of gifts under the tree.  I thought my mom must have bought gifts for the whole neighbourhood.  I couldn’t wait for everyone to get up and start in on the fun!

Modes of Future Thought: Can strategic concepts move beyond ideology? by LAZAR PUHALO

LAZAR PUHALO

Modes of Future Thought: Can strategic concepts move beyond

ideology? Political Ideologies and “Global Thought”: Can there be a

Synthesis of Scientific Theories and Spiritual Traditions? 

Big History encounters a universe’s movement into greater complexity rather than its entropy. We are engaged in studying the great difficulty and limitedness with which such an apparent anomaly occurs. Our own biosphere, which, following the thought of Panov1 and others, includes human civilisations and technologies, is one island of this increasing complexity. Such complexity brings with it fragility and vulnerability, and this is a theme that should be of special interest to us, as our own biosphere is at the point of a singularity which must be examined in all earnestness.

SINGULARITY AND MODELS A Definition

Singularity

The term “singularity” will be defined in different ways by some of the disciplines that speak at this conference. We all agree, however, that our biosphere is at a critical point, which we generally refer to as a “singularity.” In terms of the overall subject of Big History, a singularity is a convergence of compound crises on a global scale. For the context of this paper, we will define the “singularity” as a crisis of transition from Axial I into Axial II, from the First Axial Era into the Second Axial Era. Here, “singularity” designates the critical point in a phase transition which creates a structural conflict among differing premises for the conceptualization, interpretation and expression of systems.

For the rest of this article, click here:  Download Modes of Future Thought

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition (pt. 1) by Ron Dart

In Great Britain … in the bookshop of the Russian Cathedral at Ennismore Gardens in London there are basically two types of books on sale: Orthodox books and a huge array of the writings of C.S. Lewis.

- Andrew Walker

There have been, over the last two decades, a variety of articles researched, written and published on C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition. There are reasons for this, and in the next five essays, I will discuss and describe each of these approaches to Lewis and Orthodoxy, and reflect on paths opened up between Western and Eastern Christendom as a result of Lewis’ spacious and catholic understanding of the faith journey.

The Advent of Imagination -- by Brian Zahnd

___________________________________________________________

The Advent of Imagination
by Brian Zahnd

Are we lacking in imagination, we children of Cain
We of the ancient, worn-out myopic Idea
(Long since unworthy of that noble name)
The horrid idea born a bastard east of Eden—
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know he’s our brother
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know better?

Are we so appallingly lacking in imagination
That we have no freedom because we have no choices?
That which has been is what will be
That which is done is what will be done
There is nothing new under the sun
Thus spake the Preacher who lost his imagination
Thus chanted the Preacher in his mantra of despair.
(What we need is a greater than Solomon to arrive on the scene!)

Two Blind Men -- Note from Solitary Confinement

Friends,

The more Neaners reflects on his past, reads the gospels, and prays about what he wants to do with the rest of his life, he comes up with stuff like this:

Two Blind Men

Oh check this out. I was just pacing my lil' ass cell, making a jail-house tamale out of chips and thinking of Mathew 9:27-31, when two blind men get healed. 

I look at one of the blind men as us, as the homies, gangbangers on the streets and behind bars.  Or maybe a gangster, a junkie or a prostitute or whatever it is that’s holding them back.  Our blindness, or disability, is our addiction: gangs, sex or drugs. We are blinded to ourselves and our lives. 

            Like for me, I was hurt deeply. I was made fun of as a kid because I was the only Mexican in our school.  I wouldn’t get called on in my 3^rd grade glass because the teacher felt it was a waste of time since English was my second language. I was molested for two years in a bed next to my mother’s. I had no one to really lean on or vent to, so I bottled up all my emotions and feelings. I turned my pain into hate. I leaned on gangs, sex and alcohol for comfort. 

            With the hate I had inside, I used it as my energy to hurt people.  I wouldn’t let no one in, and I wouldn’t get close to anyone. I was blinded to life, real love and to emotions. I became one of the blind men in these verses. 

            Now the second blind man is like society, the system, the gabachos [white Americans], the religious people who only saw the tattoos on my face, people who never trusted us or gave us jobs because of how we dress or appear to them.  Like even this young woman Adria who now writes me and prays with me on the phone—she never would of talked to me on the streets or anyone who looked like me. But after my pastor Chris told her about me and I expressed true deep feelings, she became my first white homegirl.

    Several years ago this dorky white boy with his Chuck’s and guitar named Chris came along, someone who sees something in us homies.  He looked beyond our disabilities like the way Jesus touched the eyes of the blind man and didn’t judge him for being blind.  Chris and pastors who have that kind of relationships with homies have touched us with patience, with love for us, with commitment to us when we fall short. He’ll touch us with kind, gentle words. 

    But that kinda ministry also teaches gabachos y society leaders that we’re not just criminals and drug addicts, but we’re children covering ourselves up with tattoos and tough looks. He helps them see us, and that we need a 2^nd and 3^rd chance. That we’re just a bunch of children who have been mistreated and misguided. To see we people with tattooes and on the streets deserve to be loved y to love as well.  Meanwhile on the streets we start to see a higher power than what we think we see, we to believe in God, when we couldn’t even believe in ourselves or even see who we were.

            Both our eyes and the other blind eyes are opened slowly. Through that kind of healing ministry, God has un-blinded “two men,” see? Two worlds.

That’s how I see those verses homie.

 

Philokalia - Pt. 2 - with Ron Dart and Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

Turn off the TV! Relief from Mainstream News -- by Jeff Imbach

“Turn off the TV!”

“I would love to, but I need to hear the news!!”
“The news you hear on mainstream TV is just that -- “mainstream” owned by corporate giants.  There is another way...“
“Yeah, if I was a tekkie maybe, but the web is not friendly to me.  So massive that I get lost and angry.”

The above has been the kind of conversation that has run through my mind over and over.  Is there really an alternative to the traditional news media?  I don’t mean “neutral” as they supposedly are on national TV news, but at least a thoughtful and non-abrasive alternative.