Friday, October 29, 2021

Colleagues List, October 31st, 2021

 Vol XVII. No. 13

Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019                  

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 

*****

Dear Friends:

An important development occurred this week with the
announcement from the Vatican that Pope Francis would
be open to visit Canada. I begin to investigate what that
means in my Special Item for this issue (below).

I include other items which hopefully interest you as well.

Blessings on your week,

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.

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

WHY SHOULD FRANCIS VISIT CANADA?
A Brief Comment

For some months, Canada's Indigenous people have been advocating strongly for a visit from Pope Francis. Many Indigenous people are Catholic, but others have been expressing the same. The discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools has triggered the more recent surge in requests, but a papal apology has long been demanded.

There has also been criticism that the Catholic Church has not fully compensated residential school survivors as the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission had proposed.

I have been investigating the residential school issue for thirty-five years and realize there are significant complexities to having the pope visit and apologize. However, after the Truth and Reconciliation commission stated this as part of its series of requirements, it has been high time for a just and conciliatory move on the part of the Roman Catholic Church.

For many school survivors, the pope represents a past that cannot ever be forgiven. For others, thousands of children have died without benefit of an apology. 

If, in fact, the pope does come to Canada, it would represent a victory in itself for Indigenous people. Many recognize that, personally, the pope is deeply affected by the pain that has been inflicted.

A major stumbling block is the difference between what the pope feels as an individual and what he represents as head of a sinless church (according to Catholic teaching). Working this out will not be easy.

Catholic theology can indeed change over time as has been the case with its teachings on colonialism.

I am grateful for these early indications on the part of Francis. More comment and clarification will be forthcoming as we continue to learn about the pope's proposed visit.

Wayne

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog
October 22nd, 2021

"Why Bad Things Happen"

--

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log,
October 26, 2021

"Autism Study Shakes Preconceptions"

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
October 25th, 2021

"Beware of Your Inner Circles"

--

Philip Yancey,
Colorado

Philipyancey.com
October 28th, 2021

"What Makes a Church Toxic?"

*****

NET NOTES

PUTTING THE HALO BACK
IN HALLOWEEN
A Catholic Perspective

Catholic Register,
October 27th, 2021


--

HALLOWEEN AND JESUS:
RECONCILIATION IN THE DARK
Many Do Not Know This Tradition
A Protestant Perspective

Sojourners,
October 28th, 2021


--

HOW DO YOU SPOT A WITCH?
The Book that Destroyed Many Women

Religion News Service,
October 21st, 2021


--

FAMILIES OF KIDNAPPED MISSIONARIES
IN HAITI PREACH FORGIVENESS
Gang Leader Threatens Only Killing

The Christian Post
October 25th, 2021


--

MOST IN SURVEY SAY LIFE
WAS BETTER BEFORE FACEBOOK
Generation Z Addicted to Social Media

The Christian Post,
October 21st, 2021


--

17 COPTIC CHRISTIANS
GO MISSING IN LIBYA
Fears Rise Over Possible
Terrorist Abduction

Christian Post,
October 25th, 2021


--

DOUBT THAT LED TO DEVOTION
The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis

Christianity Today
October 2021 Essay


--

MARY MAGDALENE 
STEWARD OF THE GOOD NEWS
She Should Be Remembered Well

Catholic Register, Toronto
October 24th, 2021


--

250 YEARS AGO, 
METHODISM CAME TO THE USA
Here are Examples of How it Spread

Religion News Service,
October 22nd, 2021


--

THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH 
IS BREAKING APART
Christians Must Reclaim Jesus
from His Church

The Atlantic
October 24th, 2021


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it.

- Franz Dolp

--

Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.

- James H. Cone

--

Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, and death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial.

- Howard Thurman

--

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening, like a tree which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

- Rainer Maria Rilke

--

The poor are waiting for us. The ways of service are infinite and left to the imagination. Let us not wait to be instructed in how to serve. We invent and we live the new heavens and the new earth each day of our lives.…If we don’t love, God remains without an epiphany. We are the visible sign of his presence and we make him alive in this infernal world where it seems that he is not. We make him alive each time we stop next to a wounded person.

- Annalena Tonelli

--

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Nothing is small for our good God, for he is great and we are small. That is why he lowers himself and cares to do small things, in order to offer us an opportunity to show him our love. Since he does them, they are great things, they are infinite. Nothing he does can be small. Again: practice fidelity even in the least things, not for their own sake, but for the sake of what is great – that is, the will of God.

- Mother Teresa

--
Faith, it would seem, has this advantage – the believer concentrates mind and heart upon means that dovetail nicely with the end, the “end time,” the “realm.” Let the seeker, like Daniel, concentrate on such means as make that stupendous advent less unlikely, less distant. Let the seeker become a seer. Let him pursue the truth through means that accommodate, welcome, befit the truth. And the seer will come to understand that the Realm nears. This because the means, like a lowly, all but invisible seed lodged in good soil, in sign and portent and hope of harvest, contain the end itself.
- Daniel Berrigan

--

It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

***

CLOSING THOUGHT -  Susan Sontag

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.

*****

For Those Interested -

ACTS MINISTRY AUTUMN STUDIES AT ST.DAVID'S UNITED:

Monday Night Book Study - Sept. 20th - Nov. 29th 7-8:30 PM              Zoom (10 weeks)

(no class on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11th)

Book Theme: "Starlight" by Richard Wagamese

**

Thursday Morning Bible Study - Sept. 23 - Nov. 25 10-11 AM 
Zoom (10 weeks)

Bible Theme - "First Isaiah" (Isaiah chapters 1-39)

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

(end)

******








Friday, October 22, 2021

Colleagues List, October 24th, 2021

Vol XVII. No. 12

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 at - waholst@telus.net 

*****

Dear Friends:

Canada is a nation of refugees. When some contemporary
Canadians point fingers at newcomer refugees, they are
actually pointing fingers at themselves.

Many First Nations Canadians claim always to have lived 
here, but modern science has other things to say about this.

This week I am proud to introduce a book that tells the story 
of German refugees from Europe following the Second World 
War. It is a story with which I can identify because I was a 
Canadian kid with German and Ulster ancestry when families 
like the Weingartners lived around my family in Waterloo 
County Ontario.

Whatever your ancestry, I hope you will find the story 
presented by colleague Erich to be intriguing and informative.

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.

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

A JOURNEY OF FAITH
Across a Turbulent Century
Memoirs of a Refugee Pastor
Translated and Edited 
by Erich Weingartner & Family

Friesen Press,
300 - 990 Fort St.,
Victoria, BC. V8V 3k2

Paper $29.00 CAD
Originally Published: November, 2020
ISBN #978-1-5255-8985.

Publisher's Website:

Publisher's Promo:

How do you find the courage to go on when everything you knew is gone?

That is a question faced by Philipp Weingartner several times in his life. Born into a family of insignificant farm labourers in a town, region, and country erased from our maps, Philipp set out on a journey—both geographical and spiritual—across the front lines of two World Wars, and eventually across an ocean to a new life in Canada. This biographic collaboration between Erich Weingartner and his late father Philipp's writings gives witness to the tenacity of the human spirit. It provides abundant affirmation that commitment to a life of faith can empower ordinary people to become extraordinary in times of great need. Based on diaries, letters, articles and sermons, A Journey of Faith details one man's lived experience of tragedy, survival, and a passion to serve the less fortunate.

Philipp's son Erich transforms original German source material into a lively and meaningful English-language account of his father's life and has done so in a page-turning way.

--

Editor Erich Weingartner's Words:

My father was a great story-teller. He turned Hebrew Bible anecdotes into lively events. For me, and before movies and TV this was entertainment at its best.

Earlier in my life, I was not too much interested in these stories, or the ones about our family's refugee history in Yugoslavia and Austria. But my mother saved and gave me many of them. Today I deeply treasure them.

Before he died, my brother Arthur shared with me 200 pages of my father's memoirs. He had started translating them into English but he wanted me to complete the job. "Our kids need to know our family history and how we came to be Canadians" - my brother suggested.

Reading these pages helped me understand my own ancestry and communal history. The tragedy of war, expulsion from ancestral lands, the experience of being unwelcome "displaced persons" in search of a new home - these stories are far from unique. It became obvious that my father's account was sure to find an audience far wider than our immediate family. Although this is one man's story, it contains within it the history and tragedy of 20th century Europe.

I have included all the workable material I had at my disposal into the book you now can hold in your hands. I have tried to retain my father's voice in all the ways I found possible. Our family has made numerous trips to places in Europe described here because we wanted to enhance our memories.

This book is indeed a family labour of love and I thank them all.

Working this material gave me many insights into my father's way of thinking and tenacity of spirit that was anchored in his faith. His life was an example of up-rootedness, but never his faith.

My father's story will encourage readers to persevere in faith and hope, no matter where their journey leads them through our own turbulent times.

- taken and interpreted by Wayne from the Preface

--

Subject's Short Bio:

Pastor Philipp Weingartner ministered to churches in former Yugoslavia, to refugees in post-war Austria, and finally to immigrants in Canada as founder of St. John's Lutheran Church in Hamilton, Ontario.

--

My Thoughts:

The first WWII German migrants to my community in Southern Ontario did not impress me. They acted out customs that most of us Canadians with German background did not recognize or value. Some of them seemed distant and remote to us. They seemed to practice customs that we "canadianized" Germans were embarrassed by in front of the English-speaking Canadians we wanted to impress with our new world ways.

It is only after reading a few pages of this book that I began to appreciate why at least some of the new Canadians mentioned here came across as they did. I appreciate the detail that Erich puts into this writing.

Most of us knew so little about what the newcomers had lived through. Only at a later stage of my life did I recognize this.

Erich and I became friends while in seminary during the mid-60's. I soon realized that he was more culturally mature than I, and I tried to learn from him. He had lived through a great deal more than I.

I appreciated getting to know Erich's mother (Philipp's wife) almost two decades ago and appreciated her openness with me - writing about their family history.

I was assigned to a German-speaking congregation in Toronto for my intern year in 1966-67 and I did not fully appreciate the people there, or their pastor. Perhaps all of us were the better for having had to work together - I would now say.

It was very generous of Erich to share this book with me and now I want to share it with you. There is no question that Canada is the better because of the immigration of families like the Weingartners. I hope you will read and value this profound collection of experience.

When you hear some people complaining about new Canadians today, I hope you will reflect on learnings you have gleaned from this book.

--

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:

https://tinyurl.com/csv3r8ft


*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog,
October 15th, 2021

"And Yet I Will Not Be Silent"

--

Isabel Gibson,
Ottawa, ON.

Traditional Iconoclast
October 16th, 2021

"Transitional Transcendence" (Autumn Leaves)

--

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
October 17th, 2021

"Isolating Those Who Are Different"

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Log,
October 18th, 2021

"Permission to be Sad"

*****

NET NOTES

ON PROPHETIC RAGE
The Theology of MLK

Sightings,
October 21st, 2021


--

17 MISSIONARIES KIDNAPPED IN HAITI
Efforts Drag on to Rescue Them

Religion News Service,
October 20th, 2021


--

CATHOLIC GROWTH EVERYWHERE BUT EUROPE
Growth in the Americas and Africa

Religion News Service,
October 21st, 2021


--

THE CHOICE BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND REWARD
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, by Joan Chittister

National Catholic Reporter,
October 21st, 2021


--

A RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR SHARES HIS STORY
"From Pain to Forgiveness"

Catholic Register, Toronto
October 16th, 2021


--

IRELAND'S CHURCHES CO-OPERATING MORE THAN EVER
A Century After Partition

Religion News Service
October 19th, 2021


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

You are moving in the direction of freedom and the function of freedom is to free somebody else.

- Toni Morrison

--

Through the call of Jesus people become individuals. They are compelled to decide, and that decision can only be made by themselves. It is no choice of their own that makes them individuals: it is Christ who makes them individuals by calling them. Every person is called separately, and must follow alone.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

--

If we as Christians can see the issues of our day – poverty, racism, war, and injustice – and if we can use the skills and resources that we get from our training at school or on the job, and if we can really be open to being equipped by the spirit of God, then we will be used. We must lie awake at night and wrestle with how we can individually and collectively bring our faith from talk to power, how we can bring our faith and works to bear on the real issues of human need.

- John M. Perkins

--

If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering…somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming.

- Dorothy Day

--

The nonviolent response of the Christian communities in Iraq and Syria goes back to the beginning, when these peoples first became Christian and believed that Jesus’s instructions to his disciples to put away the sword was a command for them as well. When this belief is coupled with being a conquered and persecuted people, it is not so hard to see why these communities don’t fight back. Violence against Christians began with the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, and continues until today. One might say that the East has a heavy emphasis on the theology of the cross whereas the West emphasizes Christ as victor.

- Luma Simms

***

CLOSING THOUGHT - Elie Wiesel

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the    victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

(end)

--

For Those Interested -

ACTS MINISTRY AUTUMN STUDIES AT ST.DAVID'S UNITED:

Monday Night Book Study - Sept. 20th - Nov. 29th 7-8:30 PM              Zoom (10 weeks)

(no class on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11th)

Book Theme: "Starlight" by Richard Wagamese

**

Thursday Morning Bible Study - Sept. 23 - Nov. 25 10-11 AM 
Zoom (10 weeks)

Bible Theme - "First Isaiah" (Isaiah chapters 1-39)

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

(end)

******





Friday, October 15, 2021

Colleagues List, October 17th, 2021

 Vol XVII. No. 11

Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019                  

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 

*****

Dear Friends:

Colleague Ralph Milton, at 85 years of age, has written
a book! It is entitled "Well Aged: Making the Most of your
Platinum Years" and it will appear later this month.
I am letting you know early, so you can take time to
order it.

Please enjoy and value what Ralph has to say, below.
Also enjoy the remaining items I have found this week.

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.

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice for -

WELL AGED
Making the Most of Your Platinum Years,
by Colleague Ralph Milton, Kelowna BC.

Douglas and McIntyre
October, 2021, 256 pages.
ISBN #10-1771623101
Paperback $24.90 CAD. Kindle $9.99 CAD.

Promotional YouTube with Ralph Milton

Publisher's Promo:

Author Ralph Milton wants readers to know that old age is not a disease circling the world ready to pounce on anyone over eighty. Many, maybe even most old people say they are happier and more contented than they have ever been. And that’s good news because Canadians are living much, much longer than they used to. In fact, octogenarians are the country’s fastest growing demographic. To quote the author, “Society has never had to deal with such a huge bunch of old people.”

To address this societal shift, Well Aged offers a candid, useful and entertaining insider’s take on life among the old-old. Not the recently retired who are enjoying Arizona winters and unlimited golf, but those in their last years, usually in the eighty-to-one-hundred-year-old bracket. While there is good material about old age written by health-care professionals for other professionals, and popular non-fiction to inspire the recently retired, there is virtually nothing written at the non-professional level for the oldest of the old. Or for their families and caregivers. This book is a freewheeling, down-to-earth inside look at what it’s really like to be old, written by someone living the experience and sprinkled liberally with humour.

Topics include:

  • Identity and independence
  • Choosing a retirement location among the options of independent living, retirement residences and nursing homes
  • Personal health needs and priorities
  • Community support, friendships and recreation
  • Spirituality and religion
  • Intimacy, companionship and sexuality
  • Loneliness, depression and frailty
  • Leaving a legacy and making end-of-life arrangements

When the situation of elderly Canadians does get public attention, as it has during the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus is on what can go wrong. Well Aged expands the conversation around aging, and it is a must-read for anyone who needs to put out their birthday cake with a fire extinguisher—as well as those who love and care for them.


--


Author's Bio:


Ralph Milton was publisher of Wood Lake Books from 1980 to 2000. He has written hundreds of magazine articles and is the author of over twenty books. He holds two honorary doctorates (Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Sacred Letters). Milton lives in Kelowna, BC, with Beverley, his wife of 63 years.


My Thoughts:


I have enjoyed relating with Ralph Milton for many years. Recently - not as much - as 

he has not been as busy in the literary world.


It came as no small surprise to discover he has written "Well Aged"     and made it available to a large audience in this country and beyond.


Ralph distinguishes between the "new/old" and the "old/old" to show that different concerns and opportunities are associated with different senior stages.


Ralph writes for people associated with faith communities - but more than that.


Please inform your friends of this book and share the video with them.


_____

Buy the book from:

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
October 7th, 2021

"The Fine Arts of Persuasion"

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
October 11th, 2021

"Immigration - Then and Now"

*****

NET NOTES

HAVE WE BECOME NOT-CANADA?
Has Our Nation Succumbed to the Contagion?

Convivium,
October 8th, 2021


--

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS
EXPERIENCE SLOWER GROWTH
Lowest in 16 years

The Christian Post,
October 13th, 2021


--

THE WAR FOR AFRICA'S HOLY LAND
Tigray, in Northern Ethiopia, is in Turmoil
by Philip Jenkins

The Christian Century,
October 8th, 2021


--

GERMAN CITY OF COLOGNE
PERMITS BROADCAST OF MUEZZIN'S CALL
A Sign of Islamic Growth in Europe

Religion News Service,
October 11th, 2021


--

SEXUAL ABUSE REVELATIONS
ACCELERATE A SENSE OF A
FRENCH CHURCH IN RETREAT
200,000 Minors Abused in 7 Decades

New York Times.
October 11th, 2021


--

COMBINING DIGITAL AND NON-DIGITAL
THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
STRIVES TO REACH WIDER ARRAY OF PEOPLE
Engaging Church Members a Creative Process

World Council of Churches
October 14th, 2021


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

If we are to survive the future, we must adopt a more sustainable and Indigenous worldview.

- Randy Woodley

--

[W]e can never know the ecstasy of true hope without attending to the tragic realities of the poor and forgotten[.]

- Rev. William J. Barber II

--

Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. Be happy now, and if you show through your actions that you love others – including those who are poorer than you – you’ll give them happiness, too. It doesn’t take much; it can be just giving a smile. The world would be a much better place if everyone smiled more. So smile, be cheerful, and be joyous that God loves you.

- Mother Teresa

--

At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed him. Songbirds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we learn to hear him.…Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God?…When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.

- Oswald Chambers

--

So much of our energy, time, and money goes into maintaining distance from one another. Many if not most of the resources of the world are used to defend ourselves against one another, to maintain or increase our power, and to safeguard our own privileged position. Imagine all that effort being put in the service of peace and reconciliation! Would there be any poverty? Would there be crimes and wars? Just imagine that there was no longer fear among people, no longer rivalry, hostility, bitterness, or revenge.… We say, “I can’t imagine.” But God says, “That’s what I imagine, a whole world not only created but also living in my image.”

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Mary Oliver

It is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in the broken world.

(end)

For Those Interested -

ACTS MINISTRY AUTUMN STUDIES AT ST.DAVID'S UNITED:

Monday Night Book Study - Sept. 20th - Nov. 29th 7-8:30 PM              Zoom (10 weeks)

(no class on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11th)

Book Theme: "Starlight" by Richard Wagamese

**

Thursday Morning Bible Study - Sept. 23 - Nov. 25 10-11 AM 
Zoom (10 weeks)

Bible Theme - "First Isaiah" (Isaiah chapters 1-39)

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

(end)

******

  



Colleagues List, July 24th, 2022

  Vol. XVIII. No. 1 Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019                                            http://colleagueslist.blogspot / .ca           ...