Colleagues List, November 15th, 2020

 Vol XVI. No. 17

Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019                                                                              http://colleagueslist.blogspot/.ca http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com

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

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Dear Friends: 

This week, my special item is a book notice about the history of human relations with animals and how that is evolving. It shapes, and is in turn being shaped by, creation theology - a most engaging frontier.

All of this is, of course, related to environmental protection and how we humans have been treating nature. I hope this study will open new doors to understanding natural preservation and how "we are all in this together."

Hopefully, you will find the rest of this letter helpful as well.

Wayne

PLEASE NOTE- If a link, below seems to be dead, cut and paste it into the address bar at the top of your web page and it should work.

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SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice

WAR AND PEACE WITH THE BEASTS

A History of Our Relationships with Animals

by Brian Griffith

Wood Lake Publishing

Kelowna, BC, September, 2020

211 pages. $16.00 CAD paper.

$10.00  CAD Kindle.

ISBN #978-177-343-1796

Publisher's Promo 

“The animals that one culture likes are often hated in the next, and it seems that the animals themselves know it well. Basically, one culture’s animal partner is often another culture’s nightmare from hell. “Naturally, I wonder how relations between people and animals got to be so different around the world. How did it happen that some cultures treat bats, snakes, wolves, or ravens as embodiments of evil, while other people treat the same animals with affection or even reverence?”

Our wars with the animals go way back. Beyond the light cast by our prehistoric campfires, the eyes glowing in the night seemed to represent a great hostile force. As we began to cultivate crops and husband a few favoured animals, we generally regarded other creatures as threats to our chosen few. Using the logic of war, we sought to maximize the populations of certain creatures, and the destruction of others. In the past, that war effort was our great crusade for the advancement of civilization as we knew it. The war had a frontier, a front line, and an ongoing battle on the home front. Expanding outward from our various cradles of civilization, we progressively “tamed” the forests and grasslands, converting them to monocrop plantations or pastures. Then we had to defend our monocrops from encroaching weeds, insects, and wild animals.

In this immediately engaging, story- and fact-filled page-turner of a book, Brian Griffith looks at the range of ways we relate to animals and the stories we tell about them. He asks how we choose whether buddyhood, fearful respect, businesslike predation, or genocidal war is the most appropriate response to each species we meet. He watches how our treatment of “inferior beings” affects our treatment of “inferior people,” and traces some of the chain reactions we unleash when we try to weed out species we don’t like. “Without much hope of making animals fit my personal preferences,” he writes, “I wonder how good our relations can get.

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Author's Bio   Brian Griffith

Brian Griffith was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in Texas, and returned to Canada as an adult. He took a BA in history at the University of Alberta, spent several years as a community development volunteer in India and Kenya, and has worked in Toronto as an editor and independent historian ever since. His previous books are The Gardens of Their Dreams: Desertification and Culture in World History; Correcting Jesus: 2000 Years of Changing the Story; and A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese History.--

My Thoughts - 

As we continue to develop creation theology from hierarchical to a more egalitarian framework of understanding, a book like this one is most helpful and informative.

I think that, in spite of commonly accepted understandings from the past, we as humans are gradually coming to recognize that reality is much more horizontal than vertical in nature.

A book like this from Brian Griffith, writing for Wood Lake Publications, is an intriguing support for a more balanced quest. This study takes us beyond mere "blessing of the animals" liturgies, to a revolutionary way of understanding how all creation inter-relates.

I appreciate that Wood Lake continues to venture in these new directions because, ultimately, it changes the way we humans engage reality.

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Buy the book

From Wood Lake Publishers: 

https://tinyurl.com/y4kcecdd

From Amazon.ca:

https://tinyurl.com/y2fwxe8h

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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Elfrieda Schroeder,
Winnipeg, MB

"In Transit" Blog
 November 7th, 2020

"Let Me Count the Ways"
 https://tinyurl.com/y3xn73jy

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Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog
November 6th, 2020

"Stuff Matters"
  https://tinyurl.com/y4x8cvyw

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Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Site,
November 8th, 2020

"Decline of the American Empire"
  https://tinyurl.com/yyfe7xtm

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Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
November 9th, 2020

"The Law of Gravity and the Holy Spirit"
  https://tinyurl.com/y5azxzv6

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NET NOTES

FOR THIS VULNERABLE NATION
Lord, Hear Our Prayer
by Jim Wallis and Friends

Sojourners,
November 12th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/yxz4bovw

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HEALING AFTER THE ELECTION
US Episcopal Presiding Bishop Curry

Religion News Service,
November 12th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y54kckde

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OUR MASKS HAVE UNMASKED US
We Need to Practice Compassion

The Christian Century,
October 28th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y2fr3l5f

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RABBI JONATHON SACKS DIES
He Brought Judaism to a Global Audience

Religion News Service,
November 8th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y4osbdx8

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WHO WILL BIDEN LISTEN TO
ON FAITH MATTERS?
His Leadership Style is Moderation

Religion News Service
November 8th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/yxtb7ffb

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CAN OUTER SPACE BE THE
WORLD'S NEXT BATTLEGROUND?
Warfare is a Major Human Inclination

Broadview,
October 19th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y5khygzb

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SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA
WINS CANADIAN LITERARY HONOUR
Giller Prize for One Who Came as a Refugee

Globe and Mail,
November 9th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y47ucphp

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CHIEF CROWFOOT, DIPPLOMAT,
MAY APPEAR ON CANADIAN $5. BILL
Key Negotiator Between Canada and First Nations

CBC.ca
November 10th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y6m4dxzp

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AMERICAN ELECTION WAS A STUNNING
VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY WHEN MOST NEEDED
A Canadian Perspective

Globe and Mail.
November 9th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/y5vbcbrn

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WISDOM OF THE WEEK - November 15t

From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

Patience and Gentleness is Power.  

- Leigh Hunt

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I'm willing to wait for it.

- Aaron Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton

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To choose hope is to step firmly into the howling
wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing
that, in time, the storm will pass.

- Desmond Tutu

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In the darkest hour the soul is replenished
and given strength to continue and endure.

- Heart Warrior Chosa

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Democracy will not come / Today, this year /
Nor ever / Through compromise and fear.

- Langston Hughes, "Democracy"

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A community is democratic only when the humblest
and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil,
economic, and social rights that the biggest and
most powerful possess.

- A. Philip Randolph

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While our democracy will never be perfect, we
must continually defend the rights, institutions,
and laws that help safeguard our freedoms and
advance the common good.

- Adam Russell Taylor


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Vocation is not evoked by your bundle of need and
desire. Vocation is what God wants from you whereby
your life is transformed into a consequence of God’s
redemption of the world. Look no further than Jesus’s
disciples – remarkably mediocre, untalented, lackluster
yokels – to see that innate talent or inner yearning has
less to do with vocation than God’s thing for redeeming
lives by assigning us something to do for God.

You don’t get to choose your vocation – or pick your father.

- William H. Willimon

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CLOSING THOUGHT - Viktor E. Frankl

Freedom is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the

story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative
aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect
is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of
degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived
in terms of responsibleness.

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              For those interested in our work at St. David's Calgary:

ACTS MINISTRY STUDIES BEGAN IN SEPTEMBER!!

This Autumn, Our Groups Meet on Zoom

 

Monday Night Study 7:00PM to 8:30PM (90 minutes)

Online classes run from September 14th to November 23rd.

Our Book - "The Universal Christ" by Richard Rohr

You buy it from Amazon.ca or Indigo

It will be your only cost for the series.

 

Thursday Morning Bible Study 10:00AM to 11:00AM (60 min.)

We met September 17th to make our fall study Bible selection

Classes run until the end of November

"Women of the Bible (Hebrew and Christian)"     

Invite new friends to join us via Zoom.

If you have questions, contact Wayne at waholst@telus.net

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