[Dialogue] Spong on Virginia Tech and RC Pedophiliacs: All of history conspired

Sat Apr 21 20:07:56 EDT 2007

So, here is my question:  did someone send around an original post from Spong on this?  If so, how come I didn't get it?  This happens from time to time to me, like having your hearing aid turned off for part of the conversation . . .

  From when I got into the conversation, seems the topic is, how do you address what happened at Virginia Tech.  To be honest, I have been trying to avoid even thinking about it, because this event, along with the weeklong PBS special on America at the Cross Roads about Iraq and what is going on in the world just has me overwhelmed and feeling a bit like Rip Van Winkle . . . like I just woke up from a long sleep and some thing else is going on now than was going on when I laid down to rest.

  I sent round that page on the Guernica conversation earlier in the week, and the question came up:  What word would you address to this situation?  

Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl at new.rr.com> wrote:
  Paula, I'm not sure what the message is that you are trying to send but there is a real danger in construing the events of history leading up to this moment and Calvin's notion of predestination.  Whether you choose to anthropomorphize the time dimension called history to say "all of history conspired" to bring us to this point or you find yourself deciding the will of God or you are a co-creator with God, history does not decide what the future will be.  As a being of free will, I can participate in creating history as far as the physics and chemistry of this planet allow.  I may see the gunman pull the trigger but my physical limitations can not move my body fast enough to get out of the way of the speeding bullet.  Was that a conspiracy of history to plunk me dead?  Was it a conspiracy of a Chinaman 4,000 years ago who invented gunpowder in order to have me assassinated?  It was never a meaningful insight to me to say that all of history conspired to bring the
 Holocaust into our lives.  There are simply those events occurring in which some poor unfortunate souls happen to get in the way.  And that for me is the nature of God's universe.

Paula Philbrook wrote:     Remember the phrase,
      all of history conspired  all of history conspired  

  On 4/21/07, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl at new.rr.com> wrote:     John, maybe both you and Margaret missed some point in Spong's essay as well as Margaret's strong response to the phrase Spong used.  I had a similar response as Jim did when I read Margaret's letter.  Her abhorrence of the phrase "...wrong place at the wrong time,"  would imply that she would be more satisfied with the opposite statement, "...right place at the right time."  I can't say for sure that is what Margaret had in mind but I also revolt at the notion that somehow God guided the hapless victims into the paths of those fatal bullets.  And it gets even worse to imply that the victims (if one can actually use that term in this discourse) were to blame for their stupidity in deciding to be there. The universe that I happen to live in is one where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.  There is nothing supernatural in this observation nor does it in any way diminish ultimate
 trustworthiness in the unknown unknown.  It is simply the way life is and the way it is is that sometimes we get crushed in accidents where we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Jim Baumbach

John Cock wrote:       Jim, could you have missed Margaret's point? ~John

---------------------------------
  From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [ mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jim Rippey
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 2:54 PM
To: 'Colleague Dialogue'
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Spong on Virginia Tech and RC Pedophiliacs 

    I guess I am a heretic in Margaret's eyes.  If God-given free will means anything, then if a sick man chooses to gun down 30 some people, I cannot see how it diminishes God to say that "they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time."   I simply can't believe such events are all part of "God's good plan." However, I do respect Margaret's nerve/chutzpah in stating her deep faith, though I don't share it.   And I applaud her sensitivity and humility in facing overabundance when there is so much hunger and poverty in the world.  I believe I am called to do what I can to ameliorate such conditions, though, too often, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."    

  Jim Rippey, Bellevue, NE  

---------------------------------

  From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Margaret Helen Aiseayew
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 11:18 AM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Cc: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Spong on Virginia Tech and RC Pedophiliacs 

    I deeply appreciate the Spong postings, but was so aghast at one comment in this last one that I felt compelled to go out on the web and write to Spong himself.  After a bit a time passed (I've been working on my sermon for Sunday and the scripture is Saul's transformation) I felt like I should post to the whole list my note. 

    Dear Rev. Spong,
I get and read many of your sermons, but was utterly dismayed in your reflections on the VPI tragedy. You used a phrase I have come to abhor, "in the wrong place at the wrong time." I sincerely hope to not seem simplistic, but over the last sixty years as my faith has grown, I have come to believe that this is not possible. It is a part of being participant in the vast mystery that is my God. I do not know, nor can I understand the why and wherefore of things. I can know that I am mortal, and give thanks. I can understand that prayer will not necessarily change that, and give thanks. I can move about the world in utter insecurity (teacing adult Christian education in 34 countries) and face down machine guns and feel "lucky" to come home, and give thanks. I can suffer panic attacks in the cereal aisle of my local grocery because I am so overwhelmed by the abundance there, that is so lacking in so many places of world and not understand how I have the priviledge, demand or
 option to confront the horror of our consumption, and give thanks. But in no circumstance does my faith, my belief in the ultimate trustworthiness of the unknown unknown, give me permission to say I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. To me that is wrong headed and diminishes God to a rational understandability that would be the ultimate horror. 

Just a thought from someone who appreciates you and yours. (in full awareness of the awesome audacity and sheer nerve/hutzpah of saying so)
Grace and Peace be unto you,
Margaret

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-- 
Paula 

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