Heather Tigchelaar

She is at 8 cm.

A prayer

Lord God, Creator of the Universe who brings life out of naught and who hovers over the water of our chaos bringing order and shaping justice. We Pray for Heather and her baby, for Mike... We have long been asking for a healing. Perhaps, it will be a healing by the efficacy of Doctors. But, Angela has prodded us to ask for a miracle. We still ask! And Hope! Keep Heather safe. Keep her strong. Fill her with the strength to make a womb for this babe in this world in her strong fierce love and yours. Amen

Latest News on Heather

No new news. Heather is having a long labor. This morning at about 11 she was still at 5cm. Keep praying.

Struggling to be born(e)

We are still nervously awaiting news about Heather and the baby. Writing a blog entry gives me an excuse to be on the web so that I can check my email every couple minutes. Last night Doug and I had dinner with another couple interested in the community venture. They have quite a lot of experience in community living so I am sure we could learn much from them. Tomorrow Steve will be moving in.

Doug, Jo, Sim and I have lived in Parkdale for almost a year now. The community commenced in late November. From that perspective we are making good progress on community living. But, with Angela and Ben away most of this month and Doug and I gone for most of next month things seem pretty scattered. I am anticipating a big coversation in late June about community matters and maybe a camping trip. :) If any of you are interested in coming to join us feel free.

Just checked my email. No news! Keep praying and I'm going to try and call Heather's dad.
Jodie

Call for Prayers

My dear friend Heather is in labor with her baby today. They are thinking that they might have to do open heart surgery on the babe soon after the birth. Pray that won't be necessary. That the baby's heart is healed.

What People Are Up To

I added two links on the side bar--one called Doug arguing and the other called Jessica's work. They are just that. Doug posts with some regularity on a theory and theology website.
Here is a taste: Here is Doug I also found this moving publication by our friend John K. I am not sure of the date. It looks like Angie is running:


Ben is going to cross the podium and from henceforth will officially be Doctor Ben.

All this news (except Ben's) is brought to you by Google and Jodie.

Some Thoughts

Now it is feeling like Spring. We have a set of very nice tomato plants sitting on the window sill, rain everyday, the world a riot with purple, Dandelions already to seed, and grass growing faster than one can mow. I have been busy working through 18th century Asylum publications. Of particular interest is an Asylum Literary Magazine from the 1850s. My attention was caught in particular by one article in which the patient viewed the Asylum in light of the New Testament command that if you find yourself persecuted by a city--flee!
Augustine once commented: "Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered." St. Augustine, City of God.

I am hoping that in my work I am capturing some of the pathos and tragedy that Augustine grasps in this selection. Doug is working with such issue in a visceral way as a street pastor with Lazarus Rising. Perhaps, one of us will eventually be able to articulate our thoughts on these matters. For now, we are left a little shy of Augustine's tears, yet still touched by sadness.

New Member

We have invited another person to live here at the home of the PROTESTANT SLACKERS or perhaps at Christian Community Parkdale (CCP)giving us a more Soviet era collective farm feel as is Doug's preference. His name is Steve. He is in his early 60s and perhaps eventually he will chose to write more about himself. This is a big decision for us so please keep us in your prayers. Above are some pictures of the 'hood... In case you were curious.

My ongoing attempt at this act of worship

While this may look like I am posting as Jodie - I'm not....It's Angela sneaking in on an opportunity to post.

I am off tomorrow morning for three weeks in Vancouver. I had visited back in the beginning of April to introduce Jacob to his family and be part of an A Rocha retreat. It was both very hard to be back and a bit like being held in the embrace of the community there and sent off again to Toronto.

The retreat to Galiano Island immersed me in the world of birding, the green and blue colours of God's creation, and what seemed to me, the surreal world of academics, environmentalists, and hands-on people who all have incredibly caring hearts. Well, I don't count myself an academic, I do love God's creation, and have a passion for people and relationships...perhaps I will fit in somewhere. I returned to the paved world of Toronto and wondered in dismay how to make a connection not only between the urban and the wild, but between Toronto and British Columbia, between me and a much different board, between people and A Rocha, and throw in a strong desire for social justice and a yen to meld it with the environmental...so what's my role and where do I start??

I have concluded I am a seed planted. We all will see what grows, trick now is to discover what or who is my water and sunshine.

Christian community:
I was struck recently that in our walk with Christ we move towards becoming more Christ-like. Anyway you put it, we are clay being molded by God, we are running a marathon, we are being born again in a new life. It all comes down to one thing; this is a process, a living into the life God would have us live. There is no majic wand that will make me be full of grace, do my chores on time, love everyone well, not grumble under my breath or push me to clean up my socks laying around the house. Angela, give yourself (and others) a break - we are living into this crazy, chaotic vision God has placed before us.

I am a seed planted with others as a community to be Christ followers to each other and planted in this neighbourhood to be Christ followers to others. This is my ongoing attempt at an act of worship I am just beginning to live out.

Doug's Sermon: Standing in Common by the Name of Jesus

Doug preached the following sermon at the Warden Woods Mennonite Church this morning:

Standing in Common by the Name of Jesus

Drunk? Who? Us? We are not Drunk it is only 9 am in the morning. Thus, Peter, in Acts 2, answers crowds perplexed at a group of uneducated Galileans speaking in the language of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and a host of others - a host of Israelites gathered in Jerusalem from as far away as Rome for the first national festival since the execution of the agitator from Nazareth. What did THIS mean? Why some scoffed—“THIS-- it is only Rude Galileans and CHEAP wine” other paused to listen to Peter’s speech.
Apocalypse NOW. The Day of the Lord has come. And the Spirit is poured out to overflowing on the flesh of men and women. The vision of Joel is being fulfilled: Daughters will rise up and prophesy! The Very Old shall dream new dreams…slaves shall lift up their voices and be heard .…. And EVERY one who CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.
Some more than paused to hear this message. They became faithful. Faithful to a renewed political movement. An extraordinary movement in which all things were held in common.
In the text for this morning Peter and John stand for questioning, questioning for their part in healing a handicapped panhandler. “By what power or by what name did you do this?” What medical board authorized you to heal? Are you properly licensed? What power, dunamas, has moved you to act in such a way? But perhaps this isn’t the question at all. Peter and John insist on attributing the healing to Jesus, but the inquiry seems bent on who authorized them to speak in the temple. They are arrested while preaching and released with a solemn charge to speak no more in Jesus’ name. Over and over again the first few chapters of Acts underscore the importance of the very name of Jesus. It is a question of authority nearly every time. It is a question of power, of political allegiance. The very name of Jesus, it seems, is subversive.

In the Sunday School hour, I spoke with some of you about the causes of homelessness. We made a long list of reasons why people might end up on the street. As I said then, many people suffer the effects of more than one of those reasons. Some people wind up on the street for, really, just one of those reasons. A lost job. An injury or a disability. When I think, however, of people afflicted by a multitude of street issues, my mind goes first a foremost to a man named Jeff. The causes that keep Jeff on the street are legion. The first time I met Jeff, I was on a street outreach walk. I was so new on the job that I didn’t say a word, but only listened as Jeff spoke with my outreach partner. His wheelchair was broken. One of the footrests had been completely destroyed by another fellow on the street whom I later found out had once been Jeff’s lover. Jeff is aboriginal. He would have to wait several days or even weeks before all the bureaucratic work with ODSP could be completed and his wheelchair fixed. Of late, at night, Jeff has taken to plugging his electric wheelchair into a socket on the outside of the building at Sanctuary. He has at least a drinking problem. An empty flask of Listerine sat abandoned under Jeff’s chair the last time I saw him. And, oh yeah, the chair is broken again. One of the wheels completely flat. Jeff has apparently lost any sense of hope. There’s a permanent spot set aside for him at one of the handicap accessible shelters, but he rarely uses it. More often than not, he simply urinates in his chair without so much as an effort to make his way to any number of accessible washrooms in the downtown core. I’ll be honest. I probably have as little hope for Jeff as he does for himself. If the Lord is my Shepherd, he’s certainly not Jeff’s. [pause before slowly reentering exegesis].

The setting for our passage from Acts 4 today is tongues of fire, the spirit overflowing, and a community of women and men living together and sharing all their goods in common. Acts tell us that many became faithful as a result of John and Peter’s Pentecost message. They numbered about 3000 and they took to breaking bread together and to praying. While according to the church’s calendar we remain between the Resurrection and Pentecost, the lectionary reading for today has us circling around Pentecost already. This is what it means to live out the Resurrection. The community of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is growing exponentially. The powers that be are taking notice. But, what really gets the authorities’ attention in a big way is a healing, a healing and a sermon that adds 5,000 to the 3,000 of Pentecost.
Peter and John meet an old, lame beggar at the gate called beautiful. He asks them for money. Peter answers I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you in the NAME of Jesus Christ of NAZARETH. Get up and walk…
And the man “entered the temple with them walking and leaping and praising the Lord.”
Peter takes this opportunity to preach a sermon. He claims that this act of healing is proof that Jesus is who he said. As chapter 3 verse 16 puts it: It is faithfulness to the NAME of Jesus, his name itself that has made this man strong.”
In the middle of such speaking Peter and John are seized. Fearing perhaps the same fate as their Lord they come before the rulers, elders, scribes and the chief priest, Caiphas to be questioned. It should be noted in passing that there are no Pharisees here. Eventually, Peter and John are freed. Those who have taken them captive find no way to punish them, as chapter four says later, because of the people, who were praising God for what had happened. Along the way, Peter and John speak the famous words “We must obey God rather than men, for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
As the story continues in chapter 4, John and Peter return to their friends, where there is a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And, in a repeat of chapter two, we are told in verse 32 that, “the whole group of those who were now faithful were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.”
A few weeks ago, I spent time in Ottawa at Street Level, a conference for “Truthtellers and Peacemakers” put on by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness. Sister Sue Mosteller and Bill van Buren of L’Arche Daybreak were there to focus our attention on a spirituality of brokenness and presence through stories, joke telling, and reflections upon art and Scripture. Of the plethora of poignant stories shared at the conference, perhaps most poignant for me was Bill’s story. Bill, who has an intellectual disability and a high-pitched, contagious laugh, was the first core member of L’Arche and traveled and spoke for years with Henri Nouwen. Over a long period of time, Nouwen and others urged Bill to make a life book, a collection of letters, pictures, and other scraps from his life. After constant refusal, Bill finally agreed with the caveat that nothing from his first sixteen years of life be included. You see, before Bill arrived at L’Arche, he was homeless. Decades later, Bill is one of the fortunate ones. Rather than revolving his way through asylums, group homes, boarding rooms, and further stints on the street like so many others similarly situated, Bill has found supportive housing in the context of a permanent Christian community, for the entirety of his adult life. This story is an inspiration for the work of Lazarus Rising, indeed.

And as I sat listening to Bill and others at the conference, a name and a face kept forcing their way into my mind. There’s an older man who is a vital part of the community at Sanctuary. In his early sixties. Hunched over a good bit. Long white beard. He faithfully leads outreach walks on Monday and Friday evenings. If you ever come out for one of Lazarus Rising’s walks on the third Friday of every month, you’ll meet Frank. I’ve learned a lot already from Frank. At first, I guess I just assumed that he was a staff member. But he’s not. Just before we went to Ottawa, we learned that Frank has been on the streets again for a few months. Unlike Jeff, Frank is one of those who is out on the street for a single reason. At some point in his fifties Frank lost a decent job as the result of a merger, a job he’d held in an office downtown for years and years. At his age and with his routinized disposition, Frank was simply not able to begin a new career from scratch. He has a reasonable sized RSP that matures when he’s sixty-five, one for which he’d incur sizable penalties for early withdrawal. The folks who run welfare have found out about the RSP and are insisting that he has to take the penalty, make use of those funds now, and that he can go back on welfare when he is penniless again. But Frank is loathe to take any sort of penalty, he’s had sixty-five as a goal in his mind for some time, and so, he’s on the streets again.

As I racked my brain in Ottawa, wondering who might take Frank in, I considered challenging Mennonites in the GTA to take Frank or someone like him in when I had opportunities to speak such as this one this morning. But then I got to thinking, you know, my wife and kids and I live with another couple and their kids in a situation that’s trying to model itself on these early chapters of Acts, would we be willing to take Frank in? Frank has no substance abuse problems, no psychiatric diagnoses, no history of criminal activity, and yet there is something about the way our society works that tells us that it would be dangerous, wrong, extraordinary to take Frank in. Someone else should do it. It’s the government’s responsibility to deal with these people. The real problem is with the welfare folks, right? What’s needed is more money, lest stringent regulations. But what about the kingdom of God? What would the folks in Acts do? Well, I couldn’t get these questions out of my head. And so, we are in the process of seriously considering inviting Frank into our community house.

You know, someone asked me just the other day if I really thought an end could be put to poverty in this world. I assumed they had in mind the recent head-line grabbing, bracelet wearing “Make Poverty History” campaign. I was and will be rather blunt. Taking a very small percentage or even a very large percentage of G-8 countries Gross Domestic Product and setting it aside for the poor will not end poverty. Poverty is and will be a continual by-product of our entire economic way of life. We could get everyone off the streets tonight, and a new crop of homeless folks would begin arriving in the morning. An assault on poverty can only be launched from an entirely other political and economic perspective. In point of fact, these early chapters in Acts finds us near the beginning of what is the most fecund moment in revolutionary political history. This is a time before the Constantinian sell-out of the Church to state violence. This is a time before a deep rift between Jewish and Gentile Christians. This is a time when Jesus’ teachings regarding wealth and poverty are taken so seriously that Church members begin holding all things in common. And this is also a time when Jesus’ disciples are determined to multiply into militant cells. In short, from the Resurrection through the first fourteen chapters of Acts, we have record of a time when a group of pacifist radicals who reject the law of empire in favor of God’s law are militantly recruiting for membership in their communist collective. Can you even imagine the violence of reactions to a similarly committed collective in North America today? Communism. Pacifism. Radical Missionary Recruitment. A rejection of secular Law. Now that is a recipe for a political nightmare.
But what about Jeff? Our native friend in the wheelchair? I began by talking about Jeff because he’s someone I can’t even imagine reaching. I’d like to say that the Holy Spirit moves as she will. I’d like to say that its still possible that a Christian follower of a radical political movement might eventually be able to pass by Jeff on the way to worship and say “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise up and walk.” It would be lovely to rejoice with a paraplegic “walking, and leaping, and praising God.” But you know what, I can’t honestly say that I believe that that will happen. Do I believe that God could and might still do such things? I constantly tell myself that I do. [long pause]

As we move in the life of the church toward Pentecost, it would be lovely to see the Holy Spirit create a community of 3,000 Christian Communists. It would be lovely to be a witness to the type of sign or wonder that would immediately add an additional 5,000 people to share all things in common. 8,000 or more radically faithful people of God with a common purse. And, what’s more. All of this happens in Acts, in a population the size a small North American town!
Could it happen here? Now? The twenty-first century? In Toronto? It is only in the name and by the power that has gathered us together here this fourth Sunday of Easter that we even dare dream such things. [more quietly] Jesus. Of Nazareth. The Messiah of Israel.

Mayday at Calvin.

To celebrate this year's May Day I am planning on learning Spanish. Perhaps, soon you will see side-by-side my rudimentary Spanish with my rudimentary English. If anyone is interested I am including a link to this years Chime's spoof edition. Spoofing daily devoes and DeVos proved inimical to the new Calvin spirit. Here is the pirated version: www.calvinspoof.com
Rumour has it some chime's staffers head rolled and they were banned from printing it.

Commencement speeches are not authorized by the administration. Oh no, it is just an honor to have a sitting president. However, Chimes clearly now requires official authorization. The donors we are courting prefer saber rattling to rib tickling.

Spring Semester

I am hating schools with and almost pure hatred right now. Almost any other works is more appealing than finishing up this last paper of the semester.

For a second I will pretend that I have actually enjoyed Spring. Ahhh Spring. There is nothing quite like the filigree of buds against the true blue sky.. and yes, with ee cummings I enjoy the all that is true and infinite and yes.... I am not feeling reborn though. Nope. No Osiris here.. No Golden bough of spring. I am still in the garlic rut of mud of the nearly spring. So, I am worrying about school work again. I need to stop!

Easter is all over. I have had random thoughts of taking in Eastern Orthodox Easter next week as everything just seemed to have gone by too fast. We attended church up in Buckley and instead of a strident version of "Up From the Grave He Arose" we sang some bland chorus that I've never sung before and will never sing again. Whatever side your are on in the politics of praise songs... They can neither carry Easter Joy nor Good Friday pathos. The only way I can recover from "Were You There?" is to confidently sing Christ, the Lord is Risen Today! This year I had the sorrow with out the release. I've tried to sing "Christ, The Lord is Risen Today" by myself but the Alelluias always end up sounding like cat torture.

An unplanned, unexpected life...

I suppose the title brings unexpected pregnancy to mind. I have been thinking to day of the iron cage of planned life. I seems that if we as modern American could say in a word what makes for a good life it would be that it is planned. It is in are planning in minutiae, perhaps more than the culture of death, that makes the Unexpected pregnancy such a big deal. Perhaps, all this planning is the origin of the culture of death?

Perhaps, this only my way of justifying what is anything but a planned exsistence: The dishes all over the kitchen, the dried boogers on Simeon's nose, and the lapse in thoughtful replies to old friends conform to no aesthetic. If when the day is done we are not any steps closer to financial ruin, we can still get to our beds at night, and our children have been kept sound--we count it a successful day, crawl into bed and comment that "Tomorrow we need to wash these sheets."

But, I do think that the whole project of creating shalom in our homes, and in our sub-conscious does tend to mitigate against (at least sometimes) being agents of shalom in our worlds, and churches, and amongst our friends, and old tired bothersome family members [the one's who no longer look cute with strawberry Jelly smeared on their faces.]

All that said. I'd really like to get organized. I'd really like to enact a plan. And I am hoping the next month things will look more sane and our house could reflect a hospitable welcome. But, I still suspect that upon coming into our homes you might first be welcomed by two toddlers with noses still red from a recent bogger scrubbing (one of whom could tell you if you asked her about the mess that is hiding up in Mama and Dada's room.

a friday night discussion

Doug and I have decided to post together. Dear Friends, it has come to my attention that (no, I don't like that) ... how bout. Lets just go watch our friday night movie.

No, I think that we should post something together so that we can be exemplars of how a good marriage should work! (J)

Why is watching movies on a Friday night a bad thing?

I am &*(&*(& sick of being the only one who posts to this &*(&*(& blog!

But, I just posted earlier today! Give credit where credit is due.

Well, you SHOULD post as it is more or less the case that Robert and Lauren are the only ones who read this thing anyways. I know they like me and all. But, really they are looking for news about YOU.

John Knoester.

That reminds me is his middle name Clarence or Carl? I have been under the misconception for well-nigh 6 years that it is Clarence and then I get his Wedding invite today and it says Carl. What do you make of that???

John would rather share a middle name with the first name of a famous theologian than with the angel from ITs A WONDERFUL lIFE?

Well, does it really matter they are both Universalists?

Angela and Ben and Jacob (but not Charlie) are in Montreal.

What does that have to do with John Carl?

I don't know.

You know what Doug. I think we should go watch that movie. So much for showing how well we work together as a married couple.

Yes, forget about all that exemplar crap.

Update on my work

I recently attended a conference for “Truthtellers and Peacemakers” put on by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness. Many there were impressed by Street Level’s clarion call for evangelicals who walk alongside poor folks “to add to material action a clear, creative, and challenging public voice,” a public voice insisting “that homelessness will be a priority” for Canadian “policy makers concerned with justice and mercy.” Almost everyone there signed their names to the Roundtable’s Ottawa Manifesto (http://www.streetlevel.ca/manifesto/) which was published in last Monday’s Ottawa Citizen. As an American leery of nationalism, I was nevertheless blessed simply to be present with three hundred and fifty delegates, 75% of whom occupy their time as front line workers with those who are street involved. Steve Bell sang. Ten year old Hannah Talyor of the Ladybug Foundation delighted the crowd by speaking in one of the plenary sessions, and Sister Sue Mosteller and Bill van Buren of L’Arche Daybreak daily focused our attention on a spirituality of brokenness through stories, joke telling, and reflections upon art and Scripture. In two of our other plenary sessions, Sanctuary’s Greg Paul called our attention to the potency we have been gifted with in the stories of those we encounter, while Rick Tobias of Yonge Street Mission spoke prophetically of the absolute necessity for those who would fight poverty to stand against violence, especially violence against women and children. My imagination was fired by a workshop on mobilizing volunteers and Ray Aldred’s session on First Nations reiterated just how important an intergenerational atmosphere is both for those who find themselves socially isolated and for the wider church. Of the plethora of poignant stories shared at the conference, perhaps most poignant for me was the story of Bill van Buren. Bill, who has an intellectual disability and a high-pitched, contagious laugh, was the first core member of L’Arche and traveled and spoke for years with Henri Nouwen. Over a long period of time, Nouwen and others urged Bill to make a life book, a collection of letters, pictures, and other scraps from his life. After constant refusal, Bill finally agreed with the caveat that nothing from his first sixteen years of life be included. You see, before Bill arrived at L’Arche, he was homeless. Decades later, Bill is one of the fortunate ones. Rather than revolving his way through asylums, group homes, boarding rooms, and further stints on the street like so many others similarly situated, Bill has found supportive housing in the context of a permanent Christian community for the entirety of his adult life. An inspiration for Lazarus Rising indeed.

Update

This is a busy month for us Protestant Slackers. Jodie's papers are all due: one on typology and Roger Williams, another on eugenics and a 20th century missiologist, and the last one on a 19th century literary magazine published by asylum patients. Doug just returned from a conference on street ministry. Ask him about it. Angela and baby Jacob are off to Vancouver for a meeting with the board of A' Roche. Ben is off to Montreal to conduct some experiments, and Johanna, Jacob, and Simeon daily learn more than any of us could handle at our current stage of development. :) We enjoyed Heather's visit. We are still praying daily for her little baby. Heather is beautiful and healthy looking and full of love and spunk and courage. I just puttered out on the lenten reflection. I wish I would have kept going.

News

Heather is coming to visit tomorrow.

Jacob is rolling over.
Simeon just got two molars.
Johanna learned to write "JO"
Angela is applying to work PT in food security.
Holly got sprayed by a skunk
Doug was commissioned today with at Toronto Menn. Church for work with the homeless in Toronto.
Here is the liturgy:
People: As God’s Spirit calls and the church commissions,
the servants of Jesus Christ are scattered in places of need
throughout the world.
In company with your faithful people in every age,
we have called out those with gifts for your service, O God.
Fill Doug with the love of Jesus Christ
and the power of the Holy Spirit
as he carries out the ministry of Toronto area Mennonite churches

Doug:

Grant me wisdom, patience and hope when I falter.
Give me joy in serving your church
and keep me faithful to this calling to minister to the people of Toronto’s streets.
May they be for us an icon, opening to the riches of your presence.

People: We accept your service as an extension of this congregation
and pledge our support of your ministry.
We join with you in seeking first the peaceable reign of God.
Consider your assignment as God at work in you,
ministering to human need.
May you be given a deep love for those among whom you will work,
And may Jesus Christ be known through you in word and deed.
Our prayers will continually support you.
Go now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Hymn 545 Be Thou My Vision


Jodie gave here first lectue on the Scopes trial: Here's a taste
In the aftermath of the Scopes trial, the fundamentalists seemed for a long time to disappear. In reality they had moved under ground. Leaving the hollowed halls of Princeton Seminary, the biology department at Harvard, and the First Presbyterian Church of NY, they begin to establish or strengthen their own institutions - places with out recognizable names, places like Buckley Gospel Tabernacle, and The Open Bible Church, booming churches such as Thomas Road Baptist and colleges such as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles - they began to establish Elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges, seminaries and new denominations with new mission boards and new popular figures. In the mid 1970s in the wake of Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the turbulent sixties, and Watergate, the fundamentalists reemerged in American Political Life. Jimmy Carter’s more benign Christianity can be seen in this light, but it was ultimately rejected and replaced by the strength of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s Moral Majority which was critical in ousting Carter in favour of Ronald Regan. By the mid 1980’s, fundamentalism had initiated one of the largest cultural revolutions that America has ever known. It took up lessons and language from the black civil rights movement and organized itself into a stunning and well oiled machine.
Today, originally fundamentalist organizations have broadened their tents politically and religiously and go more often under the banner of Evangelicalism. Once again, those opposed to evolution have entered into the fray in Ivy League institutions, national politics, and the media. Today, however, there is one crucial difference from Dayton, TN 1925. The spokesmen for evangelical opposition to evolution are no William Jennings Bryans. Rather than a popular democratic progressivist opposed to big business, eugenics, and militarism, the champions of Creationism today are fully aligned with the forces of economic Darwinian capitalism, might makes right militarism, and those who oppose unions, social welfare, and affirmative action. Meanwhile, the democratic left seems not to have learned the lessons of past eugenic programs and insists on the scientific merit of renewed attempts to clean up the human gene pool.

Community Meeting from Angela

Dear friends,

This weekend our new community got together to dream and plan. No name yet - except for Jodie's appropo Protestant Slackers - in response to being a block away from the Catholic Worker houses. Perhaps we should come up with a translated version of it in latin to make it sound cool.

My Brother's family house-swapped with us - so we ended up in the small town of Beamsville and they ended up in big city of Toronto. A plus for both of us! Especially for the kids - as they both had a house full of new toys to play with.

Friday night was a night for relaxation and gaming. We had a gender war for Trivia Pursuit. The woman were kicking butt for most of the game, but fell behind in the very end, to lose to the guys who pulled up from behind in their maiden game together. Which, according to Trivia Pursuit, is something that horses in their maiden races never do (win that is).

Saturday we started off with a great breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes to energize us for a day spent indoors. Johanna and Simeon were babysat by my niece Erin and her friend for the day. The kids loved a day spent with their very own playmates.

Now to the matters we spoke about:
Our long term mission statements
Our short term vision
Spirituality
Sharing Resources

Everything we came up with is open for comment, and we just started the foundational conversations.

Some of the highlights include:
- plans for a garden this summer,
- welcoming someone into our house in May,
- creating a space for meditation
- beginning Wednesday evening worship times together (Lenten season a great time to start) - along with weekly reflections on the blog
- a discussion of what a common purse looks like and how we might move towards this as a community
- a discussion of financial priorities
- starting a car coop with our van with people around the neigbourhood, basically being more conscious and deliberate with our use of the vehicle (saving money... :-) )

This is obviously a short summary of day long conversations and we will hopefully be putting together minutes that will include mission statements that we were working on as a group as well as more details of the common purse and other items.

Love to hear any comments,

In Christ,

Angela

Lenten Reflection 6

A Better Resurrection
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Christina Rosetti