Vol XVI. No. 35
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 at - waholst@telus.net
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Dear Friends:
My Special Item this week is a book serving as an introduction to the relationship between Indigenous wisdom and Interstellar science - an intriguing combination.
I hope you find this book exciting and challenging.
Please enjoy the other parts of this letter 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 -
STARSHIP CITIZENS
Indigenous Principles
for 100 Year Interstellar Voyages
by Dawn Marsden
Wood Lake Publishers
Kelowna, BC. 2021
84 pages. $10.36 CAD $6.48
ISBN #978-1-77343-398-1
Publisher's Promo:
In order to send travellers on multi-generational journeys into far space, who better to teach us how to do that than Indigenous communities?
In this insightful exploration, a scholar of Indigenous health and education outlines some of the principles that support Indigenous societies, and how they might enlighten future space voyages.
She examines how Indigenous principles can sustain not only the basic needs of space travellers and settlements for equitable distribution of food, air, water, and other resources, but also provide the philosophical, ethical, and social processes that would be needed to underpin the mental health and well-being of future voyagers.
She further shows how Indigenous ideals can ensure that space voyagers have the ability to have meaningful lives on the planets and in the interstellar space way beyond ours.
--
Author's Words:
First, I'd like to acknowledge the Creator and Mother Earth for making life possible.
Then, I'd like to acknowledge every person who has ever taken the time to share their Indigenous knowledge, skills, or experience with me, in kind ways, and with patience, especially those people I met at Elder gatherings, powwows, workshops, ceremonies, during conferences, road trips, and interviews: in books, in schools, in agencies and in Indigenous communities across Turtle Island... This book would not have been possible, without the sharing of your wisdom, kindness and humour...
I would also like to acknowledge the 100 Year Starship Society, who inspired the content of this book. Miigwetch!.
- from the Acknowledgments
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How this Book Came to Be
This book represents my personal reflection on Indigenous principles for living good lives within communities. These reflections are drawn from a lifetime of stories shared with me by Indigenous Elders and knowledge keepers from across Canada, with a special focus on what people actually did or do in Indigenous communities. I love to hear Elders speak and tell their stories - especially my Anishinaabe father and Anishinaabe-French grandmother, and all our cousins, relatives and friends.
I am particularly interested in how this traditional wisdom can help our youth who are struggling in a confusing and complex world.
I'm kind of a sci-fi nerd myself and have kept on space developments since the first moon landings. I'm interested in human settlements in other planets and how Indigenous wisdom can help us do this.
Intergenerational starship citizenship is something to which I'm committed.
- from the opening chapter "Starship Citizenship"
--
Author's Bio:
Dawn Marsden, PhD, is Anishinaabe, French, and a member of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation (Ontario). In response to a call for presentations by the 100 Year Starship Society, Marsden began adapting Indigenous principles and practices to a hypothetical intergenerational starship journey. Marsden has made similar presentations at an Earth Systems Governance Conference, at a meeting of the Planetesimals at Lancaster University, and at the First Nation University of Canada.
Marsden has training and experience in education, environmental health, anthropology, environmental studies, counselling, nutritional therapy, and applied astronautics. Obtaining scientist-astronaut candidacy and studies with the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences led her to the realization that space science is grappling with the most important issues of our time: how to live with each other more harmoniously over long durations and how to provide the supports of life within our local environments more sustainably, with zero waste.
Marsden is a single mother of two young adults and is now a settler in Coast Salish territory (British Columbia).
--
My Thoughts:
I think it to be of special interest and value that a book like this appears; helping modern scientifically-trained people come to better understand rich meanings from Traditional Indigenous knowledge.
In many ways, this possibility is much like better coming to know and understand Christian faith today from a deeper understanding of the Hebrew and early Christian scriptures. The deeper we go the more we learn.
We come to realize that ancient spiritual wisdom has existed for thousands of years, only we have often tended to ignore it. Now we have an opportunity to pursue it with the help of wise guides.
Learning the wisdom of the past is one important way of human survival into the future - - this is one approach to understanding the meaning discovered from reading a book like this. It is short but poignant.
Thanks again to the people of Wood Lake Publications for launching us into excitingly new directions!
--
Buy the book from -
Wood Lake Books:
Amazon.ca:
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
April 8th, 2021
"Singing to the Easter Sunrise"
--
Mark Whittal,
Ottawa, ON
Sermons and Blog
April 4th, 2021
"Where's Your Galilee?"
--
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site
April 4th, 2021
"The Power of Beauty"
*****
NET NOTES
HYMNS THROUGH MASKS
Christians Mark Another Pandemic Easter
CTV News
April 5th, 2021
--
HANS KUNG DIES
He was Both Celebrated and Controversial
National Catholic Reporter
April 6th, 2021
--
ASSESSMENT OF HANS KUNG
The Theologian Who Wanted to Stand Tall
Religion News Service
April 7th, 2021
--
GOAL OF 2033 SET FORTRANSLATION OF BIBLE
INTO ALL LANGUAGES
Yet Another Noble Attempt
Will it Happen?
Christian Week
April 4th, 2021
--
THE GOOD CHRISTIAN
WHITE WOMEN OF NAZI GERMANY -
Most of Them Did Not Resist Hitler
In Spite of a Few Voices to the Contrary
The Christian Century,
March 25th, 2021
--
ALBERTA HEALTH OFFICIALS
SHUT DOWN GRACE LIFE CHURCH
WEST OF EDMONTON
Closure Until Congregation
Follows Alberta Health Rules
CBC.ca
April 7th, 2021
--
JUST A REMINDER
We're Not a Grace Life Church
Broadview (weekend editorial)
April 9th, 2021
--
SHE SWUNG FROM PURITY
TO HOOKIP CULTURE
Now She Writes a Memoir
Religion News Service,
March 31, 2020
*****
WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof
Action is the antidote to despair.
- Joan Baez
--
The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that
we shall die and go home to be with him, but that he has
risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry,
naked, thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers with him.
- Clarence Jordan
--
Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it.
We are all part of one another.
- Yuri Kochiyama
--
Easter comes out ringing in terms that we all hear
if we seek to hear it, that the soul of man is immortal.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have fit
testimony that this earthly life is not the end, that
death is just something of a turn in the road, that
life moves down a continual moving river, and that
death is just a little turn in the river, that this earthly
life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening,
that death is not a period which ends this great sentence
of life but a comma that punctuates it to more loftier
significance. That is what it says. That is the meaning
of Easter. That is the question that Easter answers –
that death is not the end.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
--
I cannot help wondering whether in these days
when so large a proportion of humanity is
submerged in materialism, God does not want
there to be some men and women who have
given themselves to him and to Christ and who
yet remain outside the church. What frightens
me is the church as a social structure. And not
only on account of its blemishes. Insofar as the
church is merely a social structure, it belongs
to the prince of this world... I do not want to
be adopted into another circle, another human
milieu. I want nothing else but obedience –
even unto the cross. That is the true haven,
as you know: the cross.
- Simone Weil
--
This is the true joy of life, the being used up
for a purpose recognized by yourself as a
mighty one; being a force of nature instead
of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments
and grievances, complaining that the world
will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the
community and as long as I live, it is my privilege
to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly
used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more
I live. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of
splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment,
and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible
before handing it on to future generations.
- George Bernard Shaw
*****
CLOSING THOUGHT - Randy Pausch
Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most
powerful things human can do for each other.
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*****
For those interested -
ACTS programs just ending at St. David's United, Calgary:
TWO ACTS MINISTRY STUDIES BEGAN IN LATE JANUARY!
This Winter, a Total of 60 Persons have met on Zoom in Two Weekly Classes
Monday Night Study 7:00PM to 8:30PM (90 minutes)
Ten Online classes ran from January 25th to March 29th.
Our Book was- "Braving the Wilderness" by Brene Brown
This Study was completed March 29th
You can still buy the book 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 have been studying the Gospel of John
Classes ended April 8th, 2021
Invite new friends to join us via Zoom.
If you have questions, contact Wayne at waholst@telus.net
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