The welcoming reception, uncluttered space and natural environment offer you a place to discover more about yourself, God’s place in your life and your connection with the world.
Our ecumenical community also invites single Christian women of any denomination to visit the monastery and explore a call to monastic life.
It is our privilege to share our life of prayer, hospitality, justice and care for the earth with people of diverse views and cultures. We invite you to join those who say, “When I come in the door, it feels like coming home.”
Tag: listening
When Teammates Raise a White Flag
Paul W. Mulvey, John F. Veiga, and Priscilla M Elsass address why teams don’t work in this well known article. One of their findings is that a lack of status symbols inside a team, increases change of success. Similarly, the right size of a group is important, and team members have to be aware of why they are part of the team, if they are to succeed. There is more to it, mostly obvious, but someone has to say it.
JSTOR: The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), Vol. 10, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 40-49.
The Power of Talk
In her article Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why (PDF), Deborah Tannen, looks at linguistic styles and their affects on communication and relationships. In her research she claims that there is a difference between communication patterns of males and females, were men seems to focus on power dynamics and their place in the pecking order, while women seems to be more focused on protecting the placement of others.
Generalizations about genders is always risky, but her focus on linguistic differences is extremely important.
Avery Dulles on JDDJ*
The heart of the Joint Declaration is surely paragraph 15, and more particularly the sentence: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” This consensus does not go beyond the clear conclusions of the dialogues. While it is in perfect accord both with the Augsburg Confession and with the Decree on Justification of the Council of Trent, it dispels some false stereotypes inherited from the past. Lutherans have often accused Catholics of holding that justification is a human achievement rather than a divine gift received in faith, while Catholics have accused Lutherans of holding that justification by faith does not involve inner renewal or good works. By mentioning both faith and works, both acceptance by God and the gift of the Holy Spirit, this sentence strikes an even–handed balance calculated to satisfy both sides.
via Two Languanges of Salvation: The Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration.
Avery Dulles addresses critically the difference in languages used by Lutheran Churches and The Roman Catholic Church when it comes to interpreting what JDDJ really says.
* Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.
Various Religious Views about Organ Donations
One common concern people have regarding organ and tissue donation is how their individual religion feels about donation and transplantation. Most religions support donation as an act of giving and caring. Outlined below are brief descriptions of the viewpoints from various denominations.
Annals of Religion: Project Trinity : The New Yorker
‘It was the riots in Detroit, in Newark, both in ’67—that was what shook me,” he recounted. “I said to myself, ‘I have to have a theology that speaks to the hurt in my community. I want a theology that would empower people to be more creative. To be just as aggressive as they are in the riots, but more constructive.’
via Annals of Religion: Project Trinity : The New Yorker.
An important article about Black Theology, Wright and Obama.
songs we love.
Sarah and Mark have created an interesting website where they introduce and give examples of contemporary christian music. The site is called songs we love..
Fermingarstörf þjóðkirkjunnar
Helstu niðurstöður rannsóknarinnar eru þær að draga þarf úr trúarlegri áherslu starfanna og leggja í staðinn meiri áherslu á ungmennin sjálf, byggja störfin frekar á þeirra eigin forsendum en á forsendum kirkjunnar. Einnig kalla aðstæður í samfélaginu í dag á stóraukna umfjöllun um siðferðileg gildi. Auk þess þarf að fjölga fræðslustundum, koma á fót fermingarstarfahópi og fá söfnuðina til að gera verklýsingar fyrir fermingarstörfin sem og safnaðarnámskrár. Á þeim forsendum lagði ég fram drög að nýrri námskrá fermingarstarfanna.
via Skemman: Fermingarstörf þjóðkirkjunnar: Námsefnis- og námskrárgerð.
Meistaraverkefni Torfa Hjaltalín Stefánssonar er allrar athygli vert. Reyndar tek ég ekki undir að það þurfi að draga úr trúarlegri áherslu starfanna, enda er að mínu viti marklaust að leggja áherslu á aukna fræðslu “um guðshugtakið, um heilagan anda, um þrenningarlærdóm kirkjunnar og sögu hennar” (bls. 167) ef einhvers konar trúariðkun fylgir ekki.
Hins vegar tek ég undir með Torfa að nauðsynlegt er að fræðslan fari fram á forsendum ungmennanna en ekki á einhverjum óljósum forsendum kirkjunnar (lesist prestanna).
Death with dignity: the ultimate human right?
The medical establishment’s narrow view of there being only one way to handle the dying patient–by using every last resource available to try to save her or him–has greatly hindered the quality of our deaths. Physicians are trained to believe that they have done their job only if every last measure is taken, regardless of what value this saps from the patient’s quality of life. This is the model by which the medical establishment measures its success.
What is needed is a paradigm shift in the educational curriculum of medical schools. No one can place value on what any individual considers to be “quality of life” because we all have different bodily functions that we consider more important than others. What one person considers an extraordinary means of intervention, another may see as typical. Furthermore, what is extraordinary at one point in history isn’t necessarily extraordinary at another time.
Seelsorge
When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning.
God and the Digestive System
Luther suffered from lifelong constipation and urine retention. Thus, “In this creative moment the tension of nights and days of meditation found release throughout his being – and nobody who has read Luther’s private remarks can doubt that his total being always included his bowels.” Thus, for Erikson, there is something profoundly physiological in Luther’s new understanding of God as one who is “no longer lurking in the periphery of space and time,” but is rather “moving from inside” of us, and is thus, in a very real sense, “what works in us.”
From “The Soul as the ‘Coreness’ of the Self” by Donald Capps.
Confirmation in ELCA
Few resources from ELCA about confirmation and confirmation studies.
There is no one right way to do confirmation ministry in your congregation! In fact, a quick review of present confirmation practices in the ELCA reveals there is incredible, refreshing diversity across this church. Congregations serious about effectively discipling their youth and adults shape their confirmation ministry offerings in ways that work best for their people, context and particular circumstances.
via Confirmation more than just business as usual.
While it is true that confirmation is a practice not mentioned in Scripture (although it is grounded in Baptism, as we shall see), it was created by the church as a valuable tool for growth in faith. Because of its work through the centuries in helping to shape a Christian’s faith, confirmation ministry remains important to Lutheran congregations today. Its changing form and function over the years is an attempt to address better the needs of the young people of the day.
Prep, Inc
PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) is one of the most comprehensive and well respected divorce-prevention/marriage enhancing programs in the world. PREP is a skills and principles-building curriculum designed to help partners say what they need to say, get to the heart of problems, and increase their connection with each other.
On their website are various resources about marriage, cohabitation, and divorces. It has a bend towards traditional understanding of the family, but valuable nonetheless.
Prep, Inc – Articles. – Of special interest is Marriage in the 90s: A Nationwide Random Phone Survey (PDF).
ELCA Global Mission
ELCA’s understanding of Global Mission in the 21st Century is explained in the paper “Global Mission in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision of Evangelical Faithfulness in God’s Mission.”
The focus on ELCA’s Global Mission is the word accompaniment that is explained here.
The Theology of the Crumbs
The second symptom of the illness of man’s faith stems from relationship among fellow human beings: The Politics of Marginalization; more forcefully, Ang Politika ng Pagkamanhid. The Rich Man did not mind Lazarus, covered with wounds and praying for mere crumbs that fall from his table. There was a great chasm between them, even,though Lazarus was just at the Rich Man’s door. Because the Rich Man was already comfortable, his world no longer accounted for Lazarus. Farther and farther, every single day, araw-araw, until every single day reached forever at death, and the chasm became permanently unbridgeable. Man responds to a similar situation every single day; a tap on the car window for every street children begging for coins; an absent nodding of the head for a lola on the umpteenth retelling of the story of her life; bribing for one’s convenience. In a sense, this politics of marginalization is necessary to the economics of affluence. Once man starts serving mammon, one can no longer be present to the people around him.
Islam
Another visit during my stay in Detroit was to a mosque in Dearborn and a visit to an American Arab museum. The fact that not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs is obvious but very often forgotten. The website www.discoverislam.com offers some helpful information about the faith. In the context of the US, a fatwa from July 2005 is very important:
Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden – and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not “martyrs.”
The Qur’an, Islam’s revealed text, states: “Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.” (Qur’an, 5:32)
Prophet Muhammad said there is no excuse for committing unjust acts: “Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong you will do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong (even) if they do evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
via Fatwa against Terror (PDF).
Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that is:
We work to address inequity throughout our region through a process of recognition, reconciliation and renewal. We strive to build relationships that create social justice and build sustainable inclusive communities.
via Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.
We focused especially on interfaith issues and how the conversation has changed over relatively short time. A resource to look at in the context of interfaith is Interfaith Heroes.
Triangle Foundation
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that:
It is the mission of Triangle Foundation to promote equality and to secure freedom from violence, intimidation and discrimination for LGBT persons throughout Michigan.
We visited a community center in Detroit that had no markings on the outside do to intimidation towards LGBTQ. We heard about Ruth Ellis Center and their work with homeless LGBTQ teenagers and young adults.
There we were introduced to the “Heterosexual Questionnaire” that is a very helpful tool to address issues about sexuality. The questionnaire is found in various forms. Examples are 1, 2, 3 and 4.
More about Triangle Foundation can be found at www.tri.org.
Sacred
Maybe in the case of Christianity there is no sacred text, because it is not the text that is sacred but the one about which it is spoken.
From: Figuring the Sacred by Paul Ricoeur (Fortress Press, 1995).
Why give?
First, worshipers want to know how their contributions make a difference. Congregational leaders should highlight the specific ways that worshipers financial gifts are changing lives in the congregation and the community. The emphasis should be on ministry rather than on supporting programs.
via Leading Ideas: A Resource for Church Leaders.
About half of American worshipers regularly give 5% or more of their net income to their congregation. However, this statistic obsures important differences by denomination and faith group. Two out of three worshipers in conservative Protestant churches give at this level. Only half (52%) of mainline Protestant worshipers give at the 5%-or-more level. Worshipers in Catholic parishes are the least likely to regularly give 5% or more (only 36% do). An astounding 44% of conservative Protestant worshipers give 10% or more to their local church.