Remembering Who We Are Against All Which Tells Us We Are Not

Remembering Who We Are Against

All Which Tells Us We Are Not

by R.E. Slater

I have been developing a process theology which speaks to love surmounting hate and goodness prevailing over evil. Neil speaks to the cosmic creation we know as avariciously survivalistic in an environment which is always harsh and live denying.

It is hard to argue against what we feel, know, and sense in our day-to-day struggle to survive. Yet I believe that the cosmos we have been placed in can be surmounted by our own individualistic choices to love, be kind, be helpful, and healing.

These are God given graces meant to survive in an otherwise harsh world. Without these graces life is a misery of suffering, pain, aloneness, and without sense or purpose. But with these graces we may heal, recreate, reconnect, redeem, and repurpose what is bent and gone astray.

Which is also how I see Jesus as God Incarnate come to resurrect all the death daily found in creation. Without Jesus' atonement, redemption, and resurrection we have no theme to our lives. But with it we can see the world differently. Act in it magnanimously. And bring back to it it's own sense of identity and purpose.

Thus and thus the Gospel, ecological theologies of repurposing civilization and societies, and atoning ministry throughout every stratum of humanity's endeavors.

This I know and preach as a pancessual negentropy of life-restoring panentheism (not pantheism) where God's Self that is imbued in creation may itself be resurrected to recreate the heavens we long for and not the hells we experience.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

October 8, 2023

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A Story of Life and Death and Resurrection

by R.E. Slater

My neighbor and friend recently passed away at 97. I came to know Bob about five years ago when moving next door and having to rebuild the house I had just bought. He came to the site, introduced himself, I showed him around, and everyday after that when he visited our friendship grew.

He was the one who said to me to not fret over our loss when discovering a rotting foundation but to move on and rebuild. Over all other words spoken to me his alone was the one which made the most sense to me at the time. I valued him for his wisdom.

Soon after our meeting he introduced me to his church fellowship in town nearby. A smallish local church with a classic white steeple soaring over the village which thought itself a town. A friendly group who suffered my presence to their little cliche of towns people.

Bob also introduced me to another group of his friends which also met daily like his church group at a local coffee shop. My experience was little different from the other. Oldish, friendly but wary, and preferring their own company to new attendees. Still, they took me in as I spent the next 14 months rebuilding a disaster.

Bob was known as the "mayor" amongst his church friends and as a 90 year old winter snow skier, resident pilot who flew for "Wings of Mercy" delivering sick people to regional hospitals as needed. A fellow respect elder of his church and long lived marital couple of 75 years to his teenage sweetheart. 

Bob was also know for his service to the Naval Pacific Fleet off the coast of Japan with many WW2 engagements across the Pacific. Which is what Grand Valley State University's interview concentrated upon years before I had met him.

As my own father had died near his 84th birthday many years earlier in 2014 of Parkinson's, Bob became the "stand-in-father" I have daily missed. He was a good listener, advisor, and steadying presence in my life when I needed it. To this I will ever be grateful.

Thank you Bob for your faith and friendship. I will miss you.

R.E. Slater

October 8, 2023

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Clarence Robert "Bob" VanStrien
(1927 - 2023)

Clarence VanStrien Obituary

link

Van Strien, Clarence Robert "Bob"

10/16/1927 - 9/19/2023

Clarence Robert "Bob" Van Strien passed away at his home in Cascade on September 19th, 2023, surrounded by his children and loved ones. He was preceded in death by Pauline, his wife of 72 years and his brother, Dave Van Strien (Lois)....

Bob was a profoundly devoted son, brother, husband, and father as well as one of our last remaining WWII Navy Veterans. After the war he bought a milk truck and married the farmer's daughter, Pauline. His love of farms and the farming community remained throughout his life. He made his livelihood in the trucking business as an owner, operator, dispatcher, salesperson, and manager. His last business was C. R. Transport that moved sand, gravel, and rocks...hence, his love of gravel pits and construction sites.

Bob built the family's first home along the Thornapple River and later purchased several tracts of land in Cascade township and divided them for homesites. A sod farm along the Grand River became Van Strien Airport with the help of son Greg. Bob made it possible for Lowell Township to complete the development of Grand River Riverfront Park with a section of that land.

Bob loved to travel, and he and his wife Pauline journeyed all across North America in their private plane and RV (which they fondly referred to as "the box"). They visited all 50 states together and made many friends along the way. Bob was also an avid skier with the local Silver Streakers and others into his 90's.

Giving back was a constant theme throughout Bob's life. He was a fixture at Cascade Christian Church for 72 years, eventually becoming a lifetime elder. No service was beneath him; whether it was mowing lawns, fixing the steeple, driving kids to camp, steering the property committee, sitting on the board or many other unsung jobs that served the church. He also served as trustee on the Cascade Township Board, transported patients in need for Wings of Mercy, volunteered with Operation Santa Clause and delivered Meals on Wheels for many years.

I could not embed the video but it may be found at the link below.

Van Strien, Robert

(Interview outline and video)

August 15, 2008

Digital Collections.html

https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/document/29920

TITLE
Van Strien, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2008

CREATOR
Van Strien, Robert

CONTRIBUTOR
Moore, Debra (Interviewer)

DESCRIPTION

Robert Van Strien was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from Byron Center High School in 1945. After high school he and three of his friends joined the Navy. After basic training he was assigned to be a typist for a Commander aboard the USS Columbus. He served after the war during the Occupation of Japan and typed part of the ships newsletter. After his discharge in 1946 he used his GI bill money to learn how to fly and has owned three planes.

DATE
2008-08-15

SOURCE

Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)

SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW

Robert Van Strien (29:00)

(00:18) Background Information

• Robert was born in Grand Rapids, MI and moved to Byron Center, MI when he was 10

• His dad was a cashier at Byron Center Bank

• He graduated from Byron Center High School in 1945

• Robert joined the Navy with three of his friends after high school

(1:42) Training

• Robert went to Virginia for basic training in late September for 3 months

• He got to go home for one week during training

• Robert then went to the west coast and boarded a ship to Japan

(4:18) Occupation of Japan

• Robert was assigned to be a typist for a commander on the USS Columbus

• The war was over and there was not much work to do

• He was on a radar machine at one time and got to watch them plot out the ship’s route

• Robert helped type part of the ship’s news letter

• They went to Kobe, Japan where the Japanese had a submarine base and took about a

dozen or two subs out to sea and blew them up

• He got assigned to do work on the USS Chicago which had more than 3 thousand people

on board

(11:45) Leave

• Robert and other men had time on leave to go to Tokyo and go shopping

• He would trade his cigarettes for things because he didn’t smoke

• Robert went to Nagasaki to see where the Atom Bomb had been dropped

• A lot of guys went to the bars

• Prostitution was a problem and many of the men on the ships had STDs

(15:38) Impression of Japan

• A lot of Japan was “bombed out flat”

• The mountain sides were full of caves

• He mostly ate on board the ship and didn’t eat Japanese food

• Robert would visit friends on an Army base near by

(20:30) Discharge

• He went to the California and then to the Great Lakes Naval Academy where he was

discharged in 1946

• Robert used the GI Bill to learn how to fly

• He has owned 3 different planes

• After his discharge he bought a truck and hauled milk for 25 years

• He got a deferment from the Korean War because he was married and had a baby

• Robert appreciates living in the United States after being in Japan

• He belongs to the American Legion

Brueggemann: The OT Law Pertaining to the Year of Release - The Forgiveness of All Debts

The Most Important Command in the Old Testament isn’t what you think

http://hackingchristianity.net/2013/12/the-most-important-command-in-the-old-testament.html

 

by UM Jeremy

December 6, 2013

Comments

 

What’s the most important command in the Old Testament?

 

C’mon, this is an easy question. Because Jesus was asked the same question so we can pretty easily rely on his answer. It’s the Shema: to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And to love your neighbor as yourself. Asked and Answered!

 

But no, Jesus was wrong.

 

At least, if you value grammar over the opinion of God-With-Us.

 

=====

 

In my Sunday School class, I’ve been teaching a video series featuring Dr. Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament professor and author. In February 2012, Brueggemann gave the three-day Barton Clinton-Gordey Lecture Series at Boston Avenue UMC on the topic of “Scarcity and Abundance in the Bible.”

 

In the third lecture of the series, Brueggemann points to the following as the most important command in the Old Testament:

In Deuteronomy 15, you get a law about seven years. It’s called the Year of Release. It says that at the end of seven years, if a poor person owes you money, cancel the debt.

Uh, what? That’s the most important? A law about releasing debts? What about the Shema? The 10 Commandments? Whatever. If you break this seven-year-release law, the United Methodist Church won’t even put you on trial.

 

So c’mon, how on earth is this the most important commandment? Brueggemann continues:

I’ll give you a little Hebrew grammar–I know you’ve been waiting for this. Biblical Hebrew has no adverbs. The way it expresses the intensity of the verb, it repeats the verb. So if it says give and you want to say “really give” it says “give give” right in the sentence–”give give.” 

This law about the Year of Release there are five absolute infinitives that you can’t spot in English. There are more intense verbs in this law than anywhere else in the Old Testament. This is Moses saying I mean this. 

[The law] says to not be hard-hearted (or tight fisted) about granting poor people space to live their lives, because you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord God brought you out into the good place.

So grammatically, the Old Testament scripture with the most emphasis as in “you must must must must must do this” is a passage about forgiving debts.

 

Fascinating.

 

 

=====

 

Is it the greatest command? Clearly not, I completely agree with Jesus on this point.

 

But the command in the Bible that warrants the most emphasis, the most literary focus, the crescendo that storytellers and givers of oral tradition gave the biggest exhortation to…is a little passage about releasing debts in the seventh year.

 

To Brueggemann, this emphasis means that for a society composed of God’s people that there should not be a permanent underclass but the economy should be organized so that everyone has a viable chance. So that every seven years, there’s a chance for the people to get a leg up and have past errors forgiven. It’s the original social safety net, and it’s more painful to the rich than any progressive tax code in American history.

 

To me, it means that we follow a God who knows our sins, who knows our hard-heartedness, who knows our short memory, who knows that we bully those most like us, who knows that the mighty will always try to hide injustice behind fairness.

 

And we are always called to live a life that follows God’s pattern: to strive for six days a week, and relax on the seventh. To build up for six years, and release it to be whatever it ought to be on the seventh. And to trust that our plans, our schemes, and our dreams should always be planned with space for God to work among us in that chaotic, uncontrollable seventh day, year, or moment…because that’s how a life centered on God just is.

 

Do you? Thoughts?

 

 

 

Christian Smith: The Bible as Sacrament

"In general, a wide gulf continues to exist between biblically generated theology and the theology of theologians - and this gulf will continue to stymie the vision of bringing together the fields of biblical studies with theology."

 

- J.R. Daniel Kirk, August 20, 2011

( http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/20/colloquium-on-theological-interpretation-reflections/)

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Bible as Sacrament

http://masonslater.com/2011/10/26/the-bible-as-sacrament/

by Mason Slater

posted October 26, 2011

What is the Bible?

In The Bible Made Impossible, Christian Smith lays a withering critique at the feet of popular and academic approaches which treat the Scriptures as a handbook to life, or an encyclopedia of timeless doctrines.

Though these approaches are often framed in the language of a “high view” of Scripture, they tend to ignore the Bible we actually have in favor of the Bible we think God ought to have given us.

In the process we end up making the Bible something other than what it testifies about itself – focusing on it as a sure foundationalist starting point on which to build watertight theological systems and “biblical” guidelines for relationships or politics.

But when Jesus explains the meaning of the Scriptures to his disciples he describes the text as a witness, a written word that points to the Word [of Life (Himself)].

“Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” – Acts 24:26-27

And, if the function of the Bible is to point to Christ, then perhaps talking about it as a handbook or encyclopedia is missing the point. Perhaps a better way to speak of the Scriptures is with the language of sacrament.

In the same way that the Eucharist and baptism ultimately point to and reenact the story of Jesus Christ, so too Scripture is not an end to itself but a witness to that Story.

So the text does not call us primarily to systems of theology or directions for life (though both may be there), but rather calls us to tell once more the story of the cruciform victory of Israel’s Messiah over sin and death – the resurrected Messiah who is mysteriously God-in-flesh.

We then read the rest of Scripture through the lens of that Gospel story. Not in a simplistic “every verse is about Jesus” sort of way, but in a Christotellic way where every text is read with the climax of the story in the crucified-and-risen Christ shaping our understanding.

The Bible then is not made less important, it is the inspired witness to the Word of God, but its role is clarified. Like the Eucharist and baptism, the Scriptures are a vital part of the Christian faith, but like the other sacraments it points not to itself but to Jesus Christ whose Story it tells.

“It is therefore true that Holy Scripture is the Word of God for the Church, that it is Jesus Christ for us, as He Himself was for the prophets and apostles during the forty days.” 

                                                                                                                             – Karl Barth