[Oe List ...] FW: [earthrise] February witness

Mon Feb 11 00:46:50 EST 2008

I've passed this witness on to a few friends.  Thank you, it brought tears to my eyes.  Sometimes laying the groundwork, in quiet yet pioneering fashion, prepares for the moment "when the waters stir".  Sometimes deep understanding comes later, in the slower and quieter (?) times, out of the groundwork of more urgent and activist life.  

Krister Stendahl (lectures in Sydney in Jan 1974) spoke of "the eschatological itch".  Jesus preached the Kingdom, then shifted in tone and urgency when John the Dipper (see Elizabeth Cunningham's novels about Maude) was killed.  

Eschatology is always with us, a sense of quiet urgency in the midst of life - "the poor will always be with you" - there will always be innnocent suffering - there will always be imbalances in the social process - etc.

I had a long and deep conversation with a very evangelical (in his theology) university lecturer (in business and accounting) on Saturday.  It had the depths of the best rabbinical dialogue.  His enthusiasm was great, and not just intellectual.  I was on the verge of tears at times as we talked about issue of "the lack of meaning", and "the lack of a language about meaning", in young students.  I realised, yet again, that in the late 60s I had my eyes opened to the nurturing power of the institutional church, even if we have to be selective and patient at times.

As I said when I started the Religion Teachers Certificate and the Retreat Leaders Certificate with the Catholic Education Office 1996-1999 (too denominational, and ignoring of the non-Catholic students in Catholic schools, and ignoring of Vatican II ecumenism) and then the BTh (1996-present) - "This stuff just will not lie down for me!"  For some people questions and language of meaning comes via drama (Shakespeare, Beckett, etc), art, literature, poetry, ......  The latter group make sense for me through older languages that the latter group use, often without knowing the source.  Or maybe by just leaving the source behind.  Didn't Bernard Lonergan say "The church [meaning the institutional church] arrives breathless on the scene - and a little late" - Time magazine mid-70s. 

Cheers from Down Under
(Sri Lanka have just beaten Australia in a one-day match - cricket, what else?  You teach the "colonials" and they come back and bite  you on the bum!  And isn't that the way it should be?  Australian golfing great Peter Thompson has just praised Karrie Webb as having the best swing he's ever seen.  Across the generations ....  Meanwhile in Perth yet another young person is buried, far too young.  In 2007 it was a friend's 31-year-old daughter - "accidental overdose" while suffering from post-natal depression.  I so much want to get "the silent voice of God", the Dark Night of the Soul, into the spirituality they teach in Catholic schools.  But that's another story.)

Frank Bremner

From: h-wainwright at charter.netTo: oe at wedgeblade.netDate: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:30:49 -0500Subject: [Oe List ...] FW: [earthrise] February witness

From: earthrise at yahoogroups.com [mailto:earthrise at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of cdzoll at comcast.netSent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:40 PMTo: Earth RiseSubject: [earthrise] February witness

I think I'm scheduled for next week, but we are planning a So.Cal trip that might interfere. Lois has been dealing with "Why We Come" (meaning to church) and when asked to preach recently I found myself returning again to the HRN paper that we just used part of in RS-1. The first two parts of the paper are why most people come, but after briefly mentioning those 2 portions, I dug in again to the "pioneer" aspect. I've never really thought of myself as a pioneer although just going to that "weird" corporate community in that ghetto in Chicago was pretty unusual. I remember also a few years back writing an article for Monday Morning (Presbyterian minister's publication) mentioning the Niebuhr paper as something most clergy had probably never seen and offering to send same to anyone requesting one. I think I received 180+ requests! Then this past month Lois and I were part of the San Francisco presbytery discussion and vote to ordain a blind, homosexual woman who has been in the process of trying to become ordained for 23 years! (Think of the man by the pool). We were successful (by a vote of 167-151) to move the process along so that she could come before the Presbytery for examination. That made me think of being a pioneer. And then I thought back over my life and career and thought I've been part of the recognition of women as clergy in the church, and part of the acceptance of black leadership in this country and in the church (I was in Jackson, Miss. in 1964) so I guess, indeed, my life has been in the "pioneering" mode. I know most of my colleagues have long ago relegated the church to the historical part of their life, but along with the inspiration of Marcus Borg and Bishop John Shelby Spong, I labor on. Both of them (Borg and Spong) will be in Santa Rosa at the Jesus Seminar next month and I will be there cheering them on. God speed to all who soldier on in the pioneering mode. David Zollars

The Zollars family became aware of JWM and the Christian Faith & Life Community back in '60-61 while David was still in seminary at Union in NYC, vested the Evanston religious house in 1964, attended a Pastor's conference with JWM in El Salvador in 1965, joined the Order after summer '66 and stayed involved through 1973 when as prior of the Sacramento House Lois' health and the "turn to the world" caused them to make a new decision and return to the pastorate. It wasn't really successful as most of the churches he encountered didn't want to be "pioneers." He retired from the ministry in about 1991.
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