Vol XVII. No. 15
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
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Dear Friends:
My Special Item this week is a short piece on Bossey (read below to learn what that means)
I also provide my usual other items which I hope you enjoy.
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.
Wayne
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SPECIAL ITEM
BOSSEY AT 75
A Brief Commemoration
Bossey is 75 years old this year!
Bossey is short-form for the World Council of Churches' Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies, located near Geneva, Switzerland in the little town of Celigny.
Here is the notice recently sent by the WCC -
BOSSEY CELEBRATES 75 YEARS
AS A WITNESSING COMMUNITY
World Council of Churches News
November 18th, 2021
Here is a brief Wikipedia write-up describing the site and nature of the school.
Bossey was the brain-child of the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches,
- a Dutch theologian who was deeply involved in student Christian work during the Second World War.
Visser 't Hooft was an ecumenical movement pioneer who was convinced that the best way to develop a church committed to ecumenism was to offer committed students from around the world the opportunity to experience a lived faith experience in community. From that idea the world has been influenced by thousands of persons from many countries and faith traditions during three-quarters of a century.
Twenty years after the school was founded, I was fortunate to be invited to join that institute as a student along with about fifty+ others from many continents and religious denominations.
My time at Bossey was life-changing, and I wasn't the same Christian after that.
I am still in contact with a number of fellow-participants in that school and we continue to hope for a half-century reunion after the virus has been overcome.
Writing this newsletter/blog Colleagues List, is but one example of many ecumenical efforts with which I have been engaged over the years.
Looking back to that time causes me to realize how fortunate I was to have been there. If you have questions, don't hesitate to write me.
Happy 75, dear Bossey!
Wayne
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON.
Sermons and Blog
November 12th, 2021
"Witness Among the Stones"
--
Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
November 7th, 2021
"COP26 Avoids the Real Crisis"
--
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site,
November 15th, 2021
"The Notion of a Vocation"
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NET NOTES
THE MI'KMAQ REMAIN
A CHRISTIAN NATION
In Spite of Current RC Conflicts
The Catholic Register, Toronto
November 12th, 2021
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FAME IS A FAKE VERSION
OF FRIENDSHIP
False Community Doesn't Do It
Christianity Today
November 11th, 2021
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IN CATHOLIC ITALY
DE-BAPTISM IS GAINING POPULARITY
Citizens Can Now Declare Their Atheism
Religion News Service,
November 16th, 2021
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TELEVANGELIST NOT TREATED AS A JOKE
Biopic of Tammy Fae Bakker
Broadview,
December 2021
--
THURINGIA CELEBRATES 500 YEARS
OF LUTHER'S BIBLE TRANSLATION
At Wartburg Castle Historic Site
Evangelical Focus,
November 1st, 2021
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FOR CHRISTIAN BIRD-WATCHERS
RELIGION TAKES FLIGHT
They Find God in the Natural World
Religion News Service
November 11th, 2021
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"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN NOW"
And Do Something to Make it Better
by Joan Chittister
National Catholic Reporter,
November 11th, 2021
WHY THEY'RE NOT COMING BACK TO CHURCH
(AND WHAT TO DO WITH WHO'S LEFT
(some deeper reasons - an extensive article)
Christian Media
November 11th, 2021
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THINK WE'RE LIVING THRU THE APOCALYPSE?
SO DID FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIANS
Current Phenomena Remind Us of This
Religion News Service
November 15th, 2021
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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof:
Anger is not the opposite of civility. / If rage isn’t civil, then neither was Jesus.
- Cole Arthur Rily
--
[W]hatever that you do, you begin from the premise that you're human together.
- Musimbi Kanyoro
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I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
- Rosa Parks
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[N]o person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended.
- Alice Walker
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To be right with God is to be right with the universe; one with the power, the love, the will of the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything, and hates nothing but selfishness, which he will not have in his kingdom.
- George MacDonald
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Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude…
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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The guarantee of one’s prayer is not in saying a lot of words. The guarantee of one’s petition is very easy to know: How do I treat the poor? The degree to which you approach them, and the love with which you approach them, or the scorn with which you approach them – that is how you approach your God. What you do to them, you do to God. The way you look at them is the way you look at God.
- Oscar Romero
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We are all children of God, and his servants!…Do you think that he has no servants besides you, and that if you had devoted yourself to his service with your whole strength you could have done all that he needs – all that is needful for the establishment of his kingdom? You say you would do twice, ten times, a hundred times, more than you did. But if you did ten thousand times ten thousand more than all people have done, what would that have been in the work of God? A mere nothing! God’s work, like himself, is infinite. God’s work is you. Come to him, and be not a laborer but a child, and you will become a partner of the infinite God and of his world.
- Leo Tolstoy
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The culture of perfection is one of the most dangerous things we face today. None of us is perfect. I’ve got my scars, you’ve got yours. But people with disabilities have taught me to recognize my own imperfections and to accept them. And through that they have taught me to learn to love myself as I am. This is one of the toughest things people struggle with today. I think it helps explain much of the drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, and suicide we see today. People are unable to love themselves, so they strike out in other ways. People with disabilities show us the value in our own life.
- Joseph Dutkowsky, MD
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Gregory Dix, an Anglican monk writing eighty or so years ago about the worship of the early church, imagined what it would be like to attend the Lord’s Supper in second-century Rome by recreating the experience in terms of twentieth-century London… A grocer from the unfashionable suburbs slips through the back door of a wealthy brother’s house in Kensington at the crack of dawn to share in the breaking of bread in the drawing room – a brief, quiet event, overshadowed by the knowledge that if they would be discovered they would face at least penal servitude for life, and very likely worse.
- Rowan Williams
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CLOSING THOUGHT - Sonia Sanchez
Where is your fire? / You got to find it and pass it on.
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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
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