Ron Cole : off the map...navigating life.

the narrow path ... or madness

Thanks to my monastic friend Brother Antony for this inspiring video clip. Is this radical christianity the alternative that subverts the empire...or is this just craziness. You be the judge...let me know what you think? Oh yah...if your not familiar with the priest in the video his name is John Dear.

The Upside of Down...Thomas Homer-Dixon @ Uvic :: Saturday

Saturday May 19th 7:30 pm @ the University of Victoria

University Center :: Farquhar Auditorium                           

Cost :: Free

Details here to resereve your seat

In The Upside of Down, political scientist and award-winning author Thomas Homer-Dixon argues that converging stresses could cause a catastrophic breakdown of national and global order — a social earthquake that could hurt billions of people. But he shows that this outcome isn't inevitable; there's much we can do to prevent it. And after setting out a general theory of the growth, breakdown, and renewal of societies, he shows that less severe types of breakdown could open up extraordinary opportunities for creative, bold reform of our societies.

Homer-Dixon contends that five "tectonic stresses" are accumulating deep underneath the surface of today's global order:

• energy stress, especially from increasing scarcity of conventional oil;
• economic stress from greater global economic instability and widening income gaps between rich and poor;
• demographic stress from differentials in population growth rates between rich and poor societies and from expansion of megacities in poor societies;
• environmental stress from worsening damage to land, water forests, and fisheries; and,
• climate stress from changes in the composition of Earth's atmosphere.

Of the five, energy stress plays a particularly important role, because energy is humankind's master resource. When energy is scarce and costly, everything a society tries to do — including growing its food, obtaining enough fresh water, transmitting and processing information, and defending itself — becomes far harder.

The effect of the five stresses is multiplied by the rising connectivity and speed of our societies and by the escalating power of small groups to destroy things and people, including, potentially, whole cities.

Drawing parallels between the challenges we face today and the crisis faced by the Roman empire almost two thousand years ago, Homer-Dixon argues that these stresses and multipliers are potentially a lethal mixture. Together, they greatly increase the risk of a cascading collapse of systems vital to our wellbeing — a phenomenon he calls "synchronous failure." Societies must do everything they can to avoid such an outcome.

On the other hand, if people are well-prepared, they may be able to exploit less extreme forms of breakdown to achieve deep reform and renewal of institutions, social relations, technologies, and entrenched habits of behavior. This is likely our best hope for a prosperous and humane future.

Victoria faith communities... help needed & spread the word

 

My wife Colleen volunteers at the Compassionte Warehouse, here in Victoria...they were contacted about an urgent request from the Philippines by a Catholic Nun who runs a childrens home, and now is expanding her ministry to help babies with disabilities. Here is the letter that follows. I'm wondering if you could put the word out in your faith communities, and neighbourhood...and maybe post it on a bulletin board.

Thanks in advance,

Grace, Peace...in the radical Love of Christ,

Dear all: We received the want list for the project that we will be undertaking for the Philippines : We have been asked to furnish a children's home – for Mother Joan. We normally do not do this type of project…so this is a one time event. But this will be fun and very rewarding.

There are 60 children who will be using this home- Pacol Centre- all children with disabilities. This building is next to her main children's home called the Queen of Peace Children's Home. Some of the children have Cerebral Palsy, Hydrocephalous, Down's syndrome, etc

Right now they are being housed in their other facilities, resulting in 2-3 babies per bed. They cannot move into this new centre until it is furnished. The other centre requires supplies as well- but had all the beds required. Need to replace some of the cribs.

Most important needs to furnish Pacol Centre include:

Kitchen utensils, pots and pans – feeding 100

Dishes and cutlery for 100

10 single sized hospital beds with wheels and adjustable bed frame and side rails for children with CP

6-10 wheelchairs for disabled children 5-10 yr old

5 wheelchairs for disabled children 11-15 yr old

Any speciality supplies for children with disabilities

1 standing weight scale

1 baby weight scale

30 cribs with adjustable railings – remember these do not need to be the same standard as in Canada . We are planning on sending some foam swim noodles that line the bars- Yolanda uses this trick in Haiti and it works great. Mattress needs to be in good shape.

Baby linen, crib liners etc for 30 cribs

Mobiles- as many windup ones as possible- not batteries,

Colourful wall hangings

Wind-up swings – no batteries

Exersaucers, jolly jumpers

Booster chairs x 10

Strollers, baby seats, play pens

10 garbage cans with lids

Hot and cold water dispensers x 2

4 baby changing tables with drawers for diapers and towels – prefer on wheels

30 -40 small beds or bunk beds for children – low bunk beds, or children's beds – again good mattresses

20 regular twin bed frames for staff we will send hospital mattresses for these.

Linens and bedding and pillows for 40 twin beds – sheets, blankets, etc

Linens, pillows and bedding for the staff beds x 20

Curtains- large and long

High chairs x 10-15

Stools for feeding x 6

10-15 training potties for toddlers

Cotton diapers, diaper pails, waterproof bibs, feeding bottles, pacifiers, teething toys, toys for babies

Developmental toys for all ages

Outdoor toys – trikes and small bikes, wagons, play centre, balls, etc

Baby baths and wash basins

6-8 wooden rocking chairs

Regular linen for beds

Towels - kitchen and bath

Office and school supplies

School bags for 30 children

Sewing machines x 10

Movable white board and chalk board x 2

Gardening tools

electrical supplies – 4 ceiling fans, 4 standing fans, wire, wall plates, small lights for rooms, ceiling fixtures, etc

Plumbing supplies- sinks, taps, pipe

Carpentry tools, nails, screws, paint brushes and trays

Large self standing storage cabinets for dishes, kitchen supplies, linen, toys, school supplies x 6

Dressers x 10-15

Computers for Pacol home x 2

Office desks and chairs x 2

100 monoblock arm chairs for training centre

Household supplies like mops, buckets, etc.

Toys and stuffed animals.

Tables and chairs for "dining hall"

This is the basic list that we received – I am sure that if we loaded more supplies, all the extras would be used at the Formation Centre, schools and clinics that Mother Joan runs.

Attached is a photo that was sent to us – a visual motivation from the Mother!!!

Shipping is provided already- all we have to do is fill it. We have set up an area at Colwood to store all these until we can load out.

Happy garage sale shopping…… and garage clean-out, and neighbours garage ….. and feel free to go to consignments stores and ask for their surplus or items that they cannot sell due to the new Canadian regulations.

Thanks in advance for your help in this project!

Dell Marie Wergeland

Compassionate Resource Warehouse

Warehouse phone: (250) 381-4483

Fax: (250) 479-9312

Greetings from...Guatemala

My daughter Ashley ( on the left, the brunette ) with the kids from the orphange in Guatemala...They were complaining yesterday when they woke up how cool it was, 28 degrees celsius...and that the high for the day would be around 38. Sounds like their having fun...but busy.

relationship...faith and the environment

tomorrow Sunday April 22...is Earth Day

Blind Beggar, Rick Meigs offers some great ideas on how faith communities can less there impact on the environment. Ancient monastic communities seemed to live in relationship with the environment that surrounded them.

This, I believe is an awakening call to the Christian in the street, to an environmental ethic and through this a recognition of the problems that our own planet faces.

The Celtic Church had a deep connection to the world around it. As farmers and labourers they would’ve understood the seasons, how to work the land which they tended and cared for. They could see the goodness of the creator in his creation; some early writings show a deep and vibrant love of the environment, an understanding of God at work in their surroundings and in their everyday life.

As a congregation, as part of the body of Christ we need to accept responsibility for our environment, that is too say God creation. If we can do this we are more than likely to put renewed effort into caring and tending for our local surroundings.

Anyway Rick has started the ball rolling with come great ideas...and looks forward to some added conversation...over here.

Earth Day ... a prayer

Here we are, God — a planet at prayer. Attune our spirits that we may hear your harmonies and bow before your creative power that we may face our violent discords and join with your Energy to make heard in every heart your hymn of peace.

Here we are, God — a militarized planet. Transform our fears that we may transform our war fields into wheatfields, arms into handshakes, missiles into messengers of peace.

Here we are, God — a polluted planet. Purify our vision that we may perceive ways to purify our beloved lands, cleanse our precious waters, de-smog our life-giving air.

Here we are, God — an exploited planet. Heal our heart, that we may respect our resources, hold priceless our people, and provide for our starving children an abundance of daily bread.

( by Joan Metzner, found in Earth Paryers; From around the World. 365 prayers, poems, and invocations for honouring the earth  )

Where God is...

"Whatever thoughts we have about God, who He is or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor.  The poor are where God lives.  God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.  God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered.  God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives.  God is under the rubble of the cries that we hear during wartime.   God, my friends, is with the poor.  And God is with us, if we are with them." ( Bono at the NAACP Awards )

Thanks to JR Woodward for the heads up, you can have a listen and watch the whole speech over at his site...I was moved by Bono's words...and by the contrast between worlds.

The tool of stupidity, talks about the tools of Satan...or vise versa

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, who has worked for decades to involve conservative Christians in politics, said Sunday the debate over global warming is a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the gospel.

"If I decide here as the pastor and our deacons decide that we're going to get caught up in the global warming thing, we're not going to be able to reach the masses of souls for Christ, because our attention will be elsewhere, " Falwell said in Sunday's sermon at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. "That's pretty wise for Satan to concoct."

If you can take more...you can find it here

      Yah, what would Jesus do... I think the picture says it all.

no where to hide...the words of a prophet

Despite protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly religion of the state and economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flags and chanted the slogans of the empire. It has assumed with the economists that the " economic forces " automatically work for the good and assumed with the industrialists and the militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that " progress " is good...It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and faults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.

Wendell Berry, " Christianity and the Survival of Creation."

an emerging/missional theology...that captures the imagination of Christ

My friend James Kingsley is a panelist at one of the group discussions at the Forum for Ethical Purchasing this weekend up at the University of Victoria. The goal of the group discussion will evolve out of the following goal...

Faith communities have been involved for decades in promoting ethical purchasing through starting up organizations, holding markets and providing resources to ethical purchasing and fair trade organizations e.g. The Mennonite Central Committee started Ten Thousand Villages as a way to market the goods produced by its development projects around the world. Some of the questions this panel will be exploring are: Why are most faith groups interested in the way that consumer decisions are made? What do ethical purchasing and fair trade have to do with religious beliefs? If some faith groups promote ethical purchasing and responsible consumerism, while others suggest that wealth and consumerism are proof of God’s love, how does this contradiction impact the development of ethical standards for purchasing?

During the week James tossed out these questions on his site for some feedback...

2.What are the challenges to incorporating these issues within a/the church's practices and values?

3. What are the theological roots to ethical purchasing practice from the perspective of your faith (evangelical Christianity)

Great questions, questions 2 and 3 have intrigued my thinking for years especially in terms of theology. Since the beginning of " christianity's birth redmption and salvation have been pretty myoptic in terms of vision...saving the individual soul. One of the biggest challenges for the emerging/ missional church will be to develope a theology that is cosmic where redemption is about " ALL " of creation, and how that will play out interms of the church's missiology...so that is the challenge of question 2.

As far as question 3 goes, we need to re-read the creation story of Genesis...waking up to the reality that we're not outside of it, innocent by-standers...we're actaully in the midst of it.

26-28 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
      reflecting our nature
   So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
      the birds in the air, the cattle,
   And, yes, Earth itself,
      and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
   God created human beings;
      he created them godlike,
   Reflecting God's nature.
      He created them male and female.
   God blessed them:
      "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
   Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

29-30 Then God said, "I've given you
      every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
   And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
      given them to you for food.
   To all animals and all birds,
      everything that moves and breathes,
   I give whatever grows out of the ground for food."
      And there it was.

31 God looked over everything he had made;
      it was so good, so very good!
   It was evening, it was morning—

The above from Eugene Peterson's Message in Genesis chapter one. Another piece of scripture that I have often sited for a more cosmic approach to redemption is Colossians 1:15-18

15-18We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross .

Emphasis mine of course, but in the context of above, people of faith can not ignore any part of creation. Lay hold of this thought...if Christ spoke all creation into existence, is in and holds it all together...on that cross it wasn't just your redemption and salvation that hung in balance...it was " all " of creation. So...the resurrection, the new creation...has to be about redeeming " all " of creation. This is the Missio Dei for people of faith.

I'm not a theologian...more of a dreamer, that prays that the same Spirit that filled Jesus would fill me with the imagination of Christ. The thought that Jesus spoke " absolutely everything " into existence, seen and unseen...and that when the Father saw it, he said it was good...very good. And, that even at this moment...He is in, and of all things...and holds it all together.

If I make " the theology of redemption " about " All " of creation, instead of just you and me...and people...am I diluting, watering down what the cross is about. And if the " new creation " in to which Jesus calls as as partners, to co-create to build the new creation " the Kingdom "...is about everything. Everything...from people, to the environment, to social justice, global equality, poverty, politics, wealth, ...what does that mean for the Missio Dei of the church, for your faith community and for you as an individual. Could it be our view of redemption is so incredibly shallow...compared to the imagination of Christ. The challenge for the missional/emerging church will be to write and live a theology...that captures the imagination of the Kingdom Jesus wants to live.