Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church
1948 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
San Jose, CA 95126
I don't understand people who say that life at church is boring, or that their faith life is boring. I couldn't imagine feeling that way about all of the opportunities that abound.
All one has to do is look around to see ministry everywhere. A homeless man, an immigrant, a worker, a new play, a difficult conversation, an unmowed lawn, a child wanting to be held, an old person who sits and stares. What do they all have in common? They are all opportunities for ministry. All that is needed is a little bit of innovation and a willingness to step out on behalf of others. That's ministry and its performance is what keeps church and a faith life from being boring.
Boring is the same old thing done in the same old way. Go to church on Sunday morning and not participate fully. Yes, that's boring! Give the same old gift in the collection plate without stretching to help with a problem - even if it might cost you. Yes, that's boring! Unwilling to think about the wish list that was posted in the last newsletter because you might have to go out of your way to buy something that was on it. Yes, that's boring! Not willing to consider getting outside of the same worn and weary path that you have been traveling on your faith journey for the past 20 - or 30 - or 50 years. Yes, that's boring!
But, it doesn't have to be that way. I see so many opportunities around me every day that I wish I had more time to engage in them.
It's not boring, it's invigorating. God calls each of us to use the talents with which we have been blessed to further the community and to bring about a better world than the one we entered. When we do a little of that each day, how can it be a bore?
| KQKE | 960 AM | Air America - Talk Radio from the Left |
Extreme poverty, intractable wars, virulent disease, hatred of all stripes-these are a few of the scourges we live with today. And yet global climate change trumps them all; for if it's not addressed, all life on the planet will be devastated, regardless of geography, class, race, or creed. The Inconvenient Truth is the gripping story of former Vice President Al Gore, who became interested in this startling issue while at college 30 years ago, and now devotes his life to reversing global warming. Traveling the world, he has built a visually mesmerizing presentation designed to disabuse doubters of the notion that climate change is debatable. The heart of Davis Guggenheim's film is this elegant multimedia lecture itself, where Gore indisputably correlates CO2 emissions with exponentially rising temperatures, already responsible for dramatic climactic shifts like ice-cap melting, drought, and rising sea levels. Interwoven with this riveting public address are intimate moments revealing the poetic, searching side of Gore as he struggles to define his purpose in the aftermath of the 2000 election. This is activist cinema at its very best, for it serves to popularize and demythologize a problem long obscured by those most threatened by the solution. With humor and searing intelligence, Gore outlines crucial steps we must take to avert impending disaster and proves that inaction is no longer an option-in fact, it's immoral.-
[Note: An Inconvenient Truth will be the movie viewed at the Holy Conversations on October 14. The show begins at noon in the Walz Room. Bring popcorn and drinks to share.]
The Nonviolent Atonement is one of the most important theological books that I have read in the past decade. It takes many of the other theologies of the day and gives them a place to hang, a sinew that binds them together and helps complete them.
This challenging work explores the history of the Christian doctrine of atonement, exposing the intrinsically violent dimensions of the traditional atonement view and offering instead a thoroughly nonviolent paradigm for understanding this central Christian belief.
J. Denny Weaver introduces this new approach to the atonement based on "narrative Christus Victor." His discussion reflects the entire biblical story, paying particular attention to Revelation, the Gospels, and Paul. He also places narrative Christus Victor in conversation with defenders of the traditional atonement view as satisfaction. Pointing out the impossibility of defending the traditional atonement view against challenges raised by recent black, feminist, and womanist theologies, Weaver argues that satisfaction atonement must be abandoned and replaced with narrative Christus Victor - the only thoroughly biblical and thoroughly nonviolent alternative. [from the back cover]
"Weaver's book is a carefully considered project that refuses to give up the atoning work of Jesus Christ while also emphasizing the need to reform our basic understanding of its significance. Convinced by black, feminist, and womanist critical voices that the sacrificial view of atonement popular in Western Christendom has led to demonically violent understandings of Christ's life and purpose, Weaver listens to many voices while simultaneously constructing a nonviolent atonement theory that is through and detailed. One is left with a sense of being treated to both a scholarly banquest of ideas and a delightful spiritual soiree of theological music."
Anyone living through the time period of 1966-1970 might describe the experience as the equivalent of the change a caterpillar makes when transforming into a butterfly - still the same creature, entire different existence. In the same time it took me to go from 16 to 20 years of age, a young girl from Texas hitchhiked her way to San Francisco and burned a hole in our memories, a musical history, and perhaps even into that place we call forever.
We all think we know our icons and maybe we think they know us. Janis certainly affected me and many of my compatriots, but even more so, the music we were hearing, the message it delivered and what was to come. I didn't know Janis. I wish I had. We would likely have been friends. I may have wanted to slow her down, but then, had I succeeded, we all would not have been treated to her extraordinary result. Well, 30+ years later, I am here doing a musical about her. The motivation was not just the fact that her music remains astounding, but it was also in learning that Janis liked to write letters home and in those communications she tells us about herself, in her own words, and that treat simply could not be passed up.
Special thanks to Laura and Michael Joplin for making available Janis' letters and other belongings and for their persistent support in our efforts, to Randal Myler for his work in building this story into an evening in the theatre, to Sam Andrew for his tireless protection of the music and sound you will hear. To Travis Rivers, Bill Ham, the late Chet Helms, and the many people here in San Francisco who helped in some way to nurture or support this amazing talent, and, of course, to Janis herself for taking that journey and leaving behind something for all of us to write and sing about.