ADVENT MEDITATION: The Penitential Season by William Stringfellow
December 8, 2020
November 3, 2020
Thinking of our classmates now in the 60th year after graduation. They continue to leave us one by one.
When this blog was started before our 50th Reunion, we didn’t have a Facebook connection. We tried to find to find someone through Jo Ann that would start one but found that apparently few classmates were on-line beyond e-mails. After much labor of love from those that organized the reunions and on-going events, we’ve begun to get a better data-base for getting reaquainted with oneanother. 
One major, sensitive, challenge: because of security issues, many folks young & old have opted to keep their information limited & private on-line. Remember that every e-mail you’ve sent is out there in the cloud waiting to be mined by some data prospector. We about to post pictures of the recent Birthday Bash and there are news items we can now get from the class Facebook page. Any suggestion?
From David Hooper’s FB- “Just found out I am going to have…
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September 13, 2020
GUEST POST FROM MARCH 2020
According to Johns Hopkins University and Medicine center, presently, as I write, there are 127,863 confirmed cases of the heinous Coronavirus COVID-19. Currently, COVID-19 has claimed 4,718 lives globally. Yet, we must not forget that there have been 68,310 who have recovered from COVID-19.
By far, the highest concentration of this dreaded virus still centers in China with a present count of 80,932 cases. Yet again, to put into perspective the reality of this pandemic, we must realize that there have already been 50,318 who have recovered in China.
I share all of this to say that we must be careful in how we respond to this present global crisis. Every life is precious, and we must not throw caution to the wind, but we must also not allow fear and hysteria to grip us and dictate how we respond.
At the moment, the primary recommendation seems to be that…
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August 9, 2020
From the archives. #Blacklivesmatter
“NO ONE HAS TAUGHT WHITE PEOPLE in AMERICA MORE ABOUT DEATH THAN BLACK AMERICANS” (See BLOG for The Day)
There is a lot going on this week and it already got off to a bang over the week-end. Did you ever notice all the confusion over a little bitty thing like when do we really end the week and begin a new one? The first time I think I noticed this was way back in college years when I learned what TGIF meant.
This is just one important place the religious soul of America gets into the middle of the act. A great many Americans still observe the Sabbath that begins at sundown on Friday. The majority of Christians, not all, worship on Sunday, the day of the Resurrection of The Christ whom they follow. The country as a whole doesn’t know what to do with any of us religious folks because they…
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July 12, 2020
Amidst the protest movements of Covid19
He hath made from one blood all peoples of the earth…
This is the line that the Founder of Berea College, John G.Fee, lifted out of Paul’s famous speech on Mar’s Hill and made the defining spirit of what the College was all about. It is prominent on their campus and in their publications and always current in campus life. Just this weekend there were Tibetan monks on campus doing their reknowned sand paintings. By the way, it is beautiful on campus at spring time.
For Fee, it had a very ” real and present “meaning that put his very life in danger. It meant as a missionary that he was here at the invitation of Casius Clay to start one of the first schools for black students in the nation. The time was just before the outbreak of hostilities that would lead to war and Kentucky, this part of Kentucky, was just…
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July 7, 2020
Update for days of Covid-19 pandemic.
Can your faith do this for you : supply you each day with a deep sense of well-being, a sense of being content with yourself and your surroundings?
The Christian Faith defined as the Life of Christ himself indwelling the Church, which is his Body, has this quality as expressed so well by the Apostle Paul when he wrote-
I Have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content! (letter from prison to the Philippian Church)
The most logical question that comes to mind is, “How did Paul learn this beautiful art of living?” For him it was a major and necessary part of his faith in Jesus, the Christ, for he speaks of this in his other letters. For instance, he tells Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain“. And he tells us that this had to be learned. If Paul had to learn it, who was…
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May 21, 2020
2020 update – Ascension is May 21 this year.
I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life
14:1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; [1] believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [2] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (Gospel of John, ESV Bible).
Take a fresh look at this text from what we call the “Upper Room Discourse”; the intimate conversation Jesus had with his disciples, following the inauguration of the New Covenant and just before he went out to his enemies to be crucified.
What did Jesus mean when he said,”I go to prepare a place”?
Why was it necessary that he ascend into heaven for the…
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May 14, 2020
The 2020 Corona virus lockdown provides time for reflection on the things that really matter most.
Another take on the True Community that we all are created to long for is represented in this song written and sung by an old favorite, Squire Parsons. There is just one minor adjustment that I would call your attention to, but for me it is an extremely important one; the pictures that were chosen for this video.
According to the Biblical narrative, one of the essential elements of Jesus Christ identity has to do with his radical reconstitution of major elements of the Old Covenant faith tradition. Such integral factors as the Temple, the Law, the Priesthood, were reinterpreted by Him in such a way to announce that what these elements foreshadowed in the past, He himself was their ultimate fulfillment. This is what caused his most heated conflict with the institutional religious leaders and ultimately led to his crucifixion “outside the camp”. (see Hebrews 13: 12-14)
So…
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April 18, 2020
Thinking of my grandfather who was sent home with the spanish flew of 1918 during WW1.
The Old Zion Red Church- Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania
On our drive to New York city last week for Navy Fleet week, we finally took a short side trip that we’ve wanted to do for a long time. We went by to see where my first generation maternal ancestor lived and began his family after arriving on board the ship at Philadelphia. The record of his wedding as well as the births of his first three children were recorded in the ministerial records of this church in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, before the Revolutionary War.
The Red Church is in the Blue Mountains and has had four buildings. The first one in the early 1700’s, the present one which was built in 1887. Over the door is a marker identifying it as Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed. Lorentz Jung only lived here seven or eight years after his marriage before heading south into Virginia where…
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April 12, 2020
Coming soon. Will you be ready ?
Most of our American calendars do not even have this very special day in the Christian Faith marked. Too many Christians don’t celebrate the significance of what that historical day means.
” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
John’s Gospel, 16:6,7
But the Ascension, just like the birth, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has a vital part of the Biblical narrative to contribute. The ancient Christian Faith cannot do without it. And if we want to understand our role in that faith tradition, we must search out what was happening on this historic occasion. So I urge you to search…
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E4unity : A Prophetic Advocate for Unity and Peace 