Vol XV. No. 21
Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2016 http://colleagueslist.blogspot.ca/ http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com/
CHRISTMAS ISSUE
GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address: waholst@telus.net
This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net
*****
Dear Friends:
This issue of Colleagues List provides my annual
Family Christmas Letter as well as all the features
of a regular mailing.
Next week, I hope to provide links to all Special Items
sent you through 2019 to remind you of things you
have read, or perhaps missed during the past year.
Thanks to those who let me know if links don't work
or if there are other problems in receiving this mailing.
I am still trying to clear the bugs out of a new design.
A Blessed Christmas to all of you!!
Wayne
*****
SPECIAL ITEM
HOLST FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER, 2019
Dear Friends:
“We enjoyed a wide range of cultural and natural beauty
again this year and are grateful for health that allows both
of us such freedom in our 8th decade. We work hard at
exercise, proper meds and diet – all of which seem to
help. Our family continues to be spread out across the
province and the world…”
This is a quote from our Christmas Letter of last year, and
we are repeating it because it suggests how life continues
to be rich and enjoyable.
Our family may be “spread out” across Alberta and the
world, but - on the whole - they keep in close contact.
A summer gathering at our place in Calgary saw most of
them together, with extended family members as well.
A major international trip this year involved us with 29
persons from our St. David’s Spiritual Travelers Group.
We visited 7 new countries for us in Eastern Europe and
Russia – including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland,
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia; St. Petersburg and Moscow.
This tour was strenuous, but well worth the energy invested.
We were confronted with life on the “other side” of the Europe
we tend to know best. Tragedy and triumph are writ large
across the history of so much of what we experienced.
Next May, we plan to spend ten days in Geneva, Switzerland
and area as Wayne is attending a belated 50th anniversary
gathering of his class of 1967 – at the World Council of
Churches Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies, Chateau
de Bossey. This short visit will expose Marlene to people
and places that Wayne knew during his mid-20s, fully a
lifetime before he met her.
We celebrate 17 years together this Christmas! How time
flies!Both of us continue to invest a lot of ourselves working
to build spiritual community at St. David’s United Church.
Marlene focuses on hospitality and office support, while
Wayne continues his teaching - now 25 years in duration
there. He came to St. David’s as he evolved through a
career in the pastoral ministry and a second at the
University of Calgary!
Marlene and Wayne
marleneaholst@gmail.com
waholst@telus.net
*Link to my column - “For All the Saints”
https://tinyurl.com/ycsp5bqg
*****
COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Herbert O'Driscoll,
Victoria, BC
The Anglican Journal
December 20th, 2019
"The Guardian Accepts -
and Prepares for - the Coming of God"
https://tinyurl.com/vsbsyro
--
Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.
Sermons and Blog
December 19th, 2019
"Promise" (Advent 4)
https://tinyurl.com/v2h2kew
--
Elfrieda Schroeder,
Winnipeg, MB.
In Transit
December 17th, 2019
"A Little Child Will Lead Them"
https://tinyurl.com/u4weem2
--
Jim Taylor
Okanagan. BC
Personal Web Log,
December 19th, 2019
"Does Anyone Own Christmas?"
https://tinyurl.com/rfdhn2l
--
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site
December 16th, 2019
"Deep Incarnation -
Another Meaning of Christmas"
https://tinyurl.com/s3cj2wm
*****
NET NOTES
A CHRISTMAS GREETING FROM
THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
WCC Website,
December 9th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/qrajyu5
--
CANADIANS DIVIDED ON
FAITH VS. SECULARISM
Catholic Register, Toronto
December 14th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/tbgcvh2
--
JEAN VANIER REMEMBERED
Canadian Evangelicals Honour Him
Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
December 19th, 2019
https://www.larche.org/en/web/jeanvanier
--
CHRISTIANITY TODAY SUPPORTS
IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP
Moderate Evangelical Journal
Breaks With Conservatives
New York Times,
December 19th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/uzthbol
"The Actual Christianity Today Editorial
Advocating that Trump be Impeached"
New York Times,
December 19th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/yx29szo4
"A Crack in the Wall of White Evangelical Support"
Sojourners, Jim Wallis
December 20th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/w6x32qh
--
AMERICAN EVANGELICALS PASS
ON DEBATING IMPEACHMENT ISSUES
Predictable Silence on Moral Issues
Religion News Service
December 18th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/sv9vb9v
--
THERE IS STILL MUCH TO CHRISTMAS
THAT I HAVEN'T EXPLORED
Finding New Meaning Takes Effort
From the Editor of Broadview
Broadview Magazine,
December 9th, 2019
https://broadview.org/christmas-magic/
--
DISAVOWAL - SOME PROMISES
SHOULD NOT BE FOREVER
An Article by Joan Chittister
National Catholic Reporter,
December 18th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/vr6zgkw
--
FAITH IN FILM OVER THE LAST DECADE
An Article by Colleague Philip Jenkins
Christian Century,
December 13th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/wheyawc
--
'TWO POPES' - MOVIE PROMOTES DIALOGUE IN
A POLARIZED CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SOCIETY
Religion News Service,
December 16th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/scevszj
--
RESCUING RUNDOWN CHURCHES
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
A Guardian Photo-Essay
The Guardian UK
December 15th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/vko4kzy
*****
WISDOM OF THE WEEK - December 22nd, 2019
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:
People create social conditions
and people can change them.
- Osonye Tess Onwueme
--
The opposite of poverty isn't wealth.
The opposite of poverty is justice.
- Bryan Stevenson
--
Hope just means another world might be possible,
not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action;
action is impossible without hope.
- Rebecca Solnit
--
Loss is our common denominator. None of us will escape it.
None of us will outrun death. What do we do in the space
between that is our lives? What is the quality and richness
of our lives? How do we move through struggle and let
community hold us when we have been laid low?
- Elizabeth Alexander
--
This is all I have known for certain, that God is love.
Even if I have been mistaken about this or that point,
God is nevertheless love. If I have made a mistake it
will be plain enough; so I repent – and God is love.
He is love – not he was love, nor he will be love,
oh no, even that future is too slow for me – he is love.
Oh, how wonderful! Sometimes, perhaps, my repentance
does not come at once, and so there is a future. But God
keeps no person waiting, for he is love. Like spring water
which keeps the same temperature summer and winter
– so is God’s love. His love is a spring that never runs dry.
- Søren Kierkegaard
--
There are many who are enkindled with dreamy devotion,
and when they hear of the poverty of Christ, they are
almost angry with the citizens of Bethlehem. They denounce
their blindness and ingratitude, and think, if they had been
there, they would have shown the Lord and his mother a
more kindly service and would not have permitted them to
be treated so miserably. But they do not look by their side
to see how many of their fellow humans need their help,
and which they ignore in their misery. Who is there upon
earth that has no poor, miserable, sick, erring ones
around him? Why does he not exercise his love to those?
Why does he not do to them as Christ has done to him?
- Martin Luther
--
It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years
too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at
the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is
always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.
But now it is with the voice of our contemporaries that
he speaks; with the eyes of store clerks, factory workers,
and children that he gazes; with the hands of office workers,
slum dwellers, and suburban housewives that he gives.
It is with the feet of soldiers and tramps that he walks,
and with the heart of anyone in need that he longs for
shelter. And giving shelter or food to anyone who asks
for it, or needs it, is giving it to Christ.
- Dorothy Day
--
All the goods in heaven and on earth belonged to him.
They presented no danger to him; he could use them
and yet keep his heart completely free of them. But he
knew that it is scarcely possible for people to have
possessions without succumbing to them and being
enslaved by them. Therefore, he gave up everything
and showed more by his example than by his counsel
that only one who possesses nothing possesses
everything. His birth in a stable, his flight to Egypt,
already indicated that the Son of Man was to have
no place to lay his head. Whoever follows him must
know that we have no lasting dwelling here.
- Edith Stein
--
As often as I look at the place where the Lord is born,
my heart enters into a wondrous conversation with the
Child Jesus. And I say, “Dear Lord Jesus, how you are
shivering; how hard you lie for my sake, for the sake of
my redemption. How can I repay you?”
Then I seem to hear the Child’s answer, “Dear Jerome,
I desire nothing but that you shall sing ‘Glory to God in
the highest’ and be content. I shall be even poorer in
the Garden of Olives and on the Holy Cross.”
I speak again, “Dear Jesus, I have to give you something.
I will give you all my money.”
The Child answers, “Heaven and earth already belong
to me. I do not need your money; give it to the poor, and
I will accept it as if it were given to me.”
The Savior has preceded us on the way of poverty.
- Jerome
(end)
*****
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