Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019 http://colleagueslist.blogspot/.ca http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com
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Dear Friends:
Welcome to my Easter edition of Colleagues List - or more inclusively - my Holy Week and Easter edition.
Thanks to those who have provided inspiration of various kinds to support this issue. I am grateful to you all.
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
FROM HOLY WEEK TO EASTER
A Personal Reflection
Many Christians prefer to see the risen and triumphant Jesus of Easter - rather than the suffering servant of Holy Week. During my reflection and study of the past Lenten season, however, I have come to treasure both seasons of the church year as equally important to my faith.
My thoughts here have been influenced by a book study at our church this past winter. The book was by Parker Palmer and entitled "On the Brink of Everything - Grace, Gravity and Getting Old." Some of the key insights from this venture came to me as I co-taught a ten-week series. If you are interested in reviewing the material we covered, please click -
Thanks to colleagues Brenda Wallace and Joan Gray for their help and to the many members of the class who participated.
Early in the book I found these words which influenced every session -
"We need to reframe aging as a passage of discovery and engagement, not decline and inaction."
Palmer says that our perspective evolves as we age and our focus can be quite different from one time in life to another. How and what we see at various life stages helps us to see and to tell the truth as we understand it. We need to claim and heed these different perspectives to gain a more complete perspective.
In an early chapter entitled "Getting Real" I discovered the importance of "living my paradoxes" as I face the contradictions about myself and of life as I encounter it. There is much good and bad in my life and in the world around me. I need to embrace and integrate both and not deny each are real and important.
I applied this model while living through the days of Holy Week leading to Easter this year. The result is that I have been coming to accept the entire story of Christ's passion and not only the good things about it.
A simple example should help to make my point.
When I was young I found the crucifix (Christ prostrate on the cross) to be repulsive. My preference was the image of Christ the king, regal and dominating death. I am more appreciative of the crucified Christ today, and am sustained by both images as each one is true.
Hopefully, you have spent some time with the entire passion narrative this year. And hopefully, you will treasure the resurrection story as well.
At this stage of my life, I am grateful for both.
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
"I Have Seen the Lord" - An Easter Message
From the Canadian Leaders of the Lutheran and Anglican Churches
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Mark Whittall, Ottawa, ON
"A Moment of Grace" - Holy Week
Sermons and Blog, April 1st, 2022
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Ron Rolheiser, San Antonio, TX
"Straining to Hear the Voice of Good Friday"
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Jim Taylor, Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
"Facing Up to Life's Losses" March 31st, 2022
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Elfrieda Schroeder, Winnipeg, MB
In Transit Blog
"A Prayer for Peace" April 5th, 2022
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NET NOTES
THREE INDIGENOUS UNITED CHURCH LEADERS COMMENT
They Share Their Thoughts on the Pope's Apology
Broadview, April 1st, 2022
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APOLOGY IS BUT ONE STEP TO RECONCILIATION
For Indigenous Christians, It Takes Time
Catholic Register, April 7th, 2022
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WALKING IN TWO WORLDS
Being Indigenous and a Church Bishop
Sasktoday, March 24th, 2022
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THE RESURRECTION OF ST. GEORGE IN ENGLAND
Cultural Change and Resistance to It
The Christian Century, April 1st, 2022
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TURKEY STILL TROUBLES CHRISTIANS
In Spite of Drop in Deportations
Christianity Today, April 6th, 2022
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IS MORMONISM STILL GROWING?
Five Facts about LDS Growth and Decline
Religion News Service, April 7th, 2022
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WHAT I LEARNED LISTENING TO PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE WITH ME
National Catholic Reporter, April 12th, 2022
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UKRAINE WAR PUTS SOME AMERICAN EVANGELICALS ON DEFENSIVE
They have Traditionally Supported Putin
Religion News Service, April 11th, 2022
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INTERFAITH LEADERS GATHER IN UKRAINE TO PRAY FOR PEACE
Led by Archbishop of Canterbury and Others
Religion News Service, April 12th, 2022
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RELIGION MAKES COMPLEX WAR HARDER TO UNDERSTAND
Long Grievance Between Orthodox Churches in Russia and Ukraine
Catholic Register, Toronto
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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
To be a Christian now means
to have the courage
to preach the true teaching of Christ
and not be afraid of it, not be silent out of fear
and preach something easy
that won’t cause problems.
To be a Christian in this hour means
to have the courage that the Holy Spirit gives...
to be valiant soldiers of Christ the King,
to make his teaching prevail,
to reach hearts and proclaim to them
the courage
that one must have to defend God’s law.
- Oscar Romero
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- Isabel Wilkerson
- Austin Channing Brown
- Arundhati Roy
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
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The tongue is our most powerful weapon of manipulation. A frantic stream of words flows from us because we are in a constant process of adjusting our public image. We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us that we talk in order to straighten out their understanding. If I have done some wrong thing (or even some right thing that I think you may misunderstand) and discover that you know about it, I will be very tempted to help you understand my action.
Silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification. One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don’t need to straighten others out.
Richard J. Foster
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The reason Lent is so long is that this path to the truth of oneself is long and snagged with thorns, and at the very end one stands alone before the broken body crowned with thorns upon the cross. All alone – with not one illusion or self-delusion to prop one up. Yet not alone, for the Spirit of Holiness, who is also the Spirit of Helpfulness, is beside you and me. Indeed, this Spirit has helped to maneuver you and me down that dark, steep path to this crucial spot.
- Edna Hong
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Being patient is difficult. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.
- Henri J.M. Nouwen
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Anxiety and fear are what we know best in this fantastic century of ours. Wars and rumors of wars. From civilization itself to what seemed the most unalterable values of the past, everything is threatened or already in ruins. We have heard so much tragic news that when the news is good we cannot hear it. But the proclamation of Easter Day is that all is well. And as a Christian, I say this not with the easy optimism of one who has never known a time when all was not well but as one who has faced the cross in all its obscenity as well as in all its glory, who has known one way or another what it is like to live separated from God. In the end, his will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen.
- Frederick Buechner
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