Soul School – Lesson 40: Prejudice, Peace, and Justice

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Welcome to Soul School!

Soul School comes out each Wednesday
(Which is Hump Day – midweek in the work week).

This episode is the the hardest one I’ve done yet.

• I recorded it with no notes and off-the-cuff with my heart busted wide open–just after Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were senselessly killed but just before the 5 Dallas police officers were assassinated by a snipper during a peaceful protest march. Even though it’s not a typical Soul School in some ways, I hope it’s meaningful to you some how. If so, let me know.

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SHOW NOTES:
Photo of me and my father, Joseph Colón:

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Episode 13 – “We cannot encapsulate God in our Theology” guest Doug Jackson

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Shownotes for Episode 13  Wine lovers have God to thank + guest Doug Jackson


First, I want to feature the book Doug and I wrote …

entitled Dog in the Gap because of a C.S. Lewis quote “Man and his dog close a gap in the universe”.

 

And there’s a BONUS EDITION with lots of goodies!
Read a sample here!


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Thank you! Enjoy the show!

With love,

~Lisa

WINE SEGMENT:

Who do we have to thank for wine?

God and the Church, actually.

Wine lovers in Western civilization have the Church in Europe (and the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire–which was neither holy nor Roman ) to thank for the large-scale production, the prevalence and the excellence of wine!

Why? 

Because liturgy involving wine for communion was central to Christian religious practice. Wine was ingested as the saving holy blood of Christ (and bread as the holy body of Christ), usually each and every day. The sacraments of Communion served as saving grace afforded to the Church.

As Roman Empire became officially a Christian Empire (circa 313 CE) many vineyards had to be planted, properly cultivated, and harvested. Grapes had to be made into a lot of to support the daily practice of communion throughout the Empire.

Communion served as wine was the norm among Christians world-wide until recently–in the era of pasteurization. To keep juice from grapes in a state were they would not ferment meant it had to be sufficiently boiled so the natural yeast would die. 

Vehemently opposed to alcohol, Thomas Bramwell Welch, a physician, dentist, and Methodist pastor from Vineyard, New Jersey, figured out the process in 1869 with Concord grapes. Most churches did not accept the switch as proper and stayed with wine.

The juice later became more popular during Victorian era because of prominent values of abstinence. A shift then began in the U.S. that made grape juice the main communion beverage (at least among certain Protestants sects).

Several hundred vineyards operating in Europe today can trace their history to monastic origins.

In the 9th-15th centuries almost 1,000 monasteries dotted Europe. They were centers of education, stability, and technical innovation. Monks and nuns could read and write–this was quite uncommon then.

Monasteries cared for the sick, helped the poor, created places of education, and invented Universities. They could not fund all this through donations. Surplus wine was sold to finance ministry work (and also beer, fruit brandies, and cheese, among many other things..even prayers and Salvation ..which–in hindsight–appears to have been a mistake ) .

So, basically, thank God (and many monks) for wine!


 

Sparking your muse

 Enjoy the fantastic chat with Doug Jackson!

Doug-Jackson

Douglas Jackson, D.Min.
Director of the Logsdon Seminary Graduate Program

Doug Jackson came to SCS in 2006, after serving as pastor of Second Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, since 1993. In addition to teaching courses, Dr. Jackson functions as a liaison between Logsdon Seminary and local churches in Corpus Christi. His areas of specialization include spiritual formation and pastoral ministry. Dr. Jackson has published and presented several articles and essays in religious and literary venues, including articles and lectures on the life and writings of C.S. Lewis.
• D.Min. – Truett Seminary (2006)
• M.Div. – Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1985)
• B.A. – English Literature, Grand Canyon College (1982)

His blog is here.


 

Interview / chat notes:

 

MIN 8:00
on Doug preparing for a his Fall class.

A resource he is using by NT Wright – “The new perspective on Paul”
The covenant people God has saved.

8:50
Reformers and the necessary correction in contemporary times.

9:00
Confronting individualism
and thoughts on human flourishing.

9:50
on the idea of being “spiritual but not religious”

10:30
on his work about CS Lewis

Mere Christianity

11:00
The importance of imagination for understanding that isn’t covered by rationalism.

12:30
on his Oxford lecture
Owen Barfield an influential life-long friend of CS Lewis

Another lecture on Walter Miller – A Canticle for Leibowitz
Apologetic self-proclaimed validity on the rational scheme of knowing.

“Scholarship is about knowing more and more about less and less so that eventually you know everything about nothing.”

14:30
James Sire

15:70
Malcolm Guite https://www.facebook.com/malcolm.guite
Chaplain of Gerton college and Cambridge
“Faith Hope and Poetry”

He covers the imagination as a way of knowing (an epistemology).

Holly Ordway
Houston Baptist University
“Not God’s Type”

Her 2-track movement toward conversion

18:00
Brainpickings.com Maria Popova (an admitted secular atheist on a continual spiritual search)

19:00
on Spiritual atheism

….if we come up with a system that covers everything (Christians and Atheists alike)…

“Humans are sensitive and emotionally vulnerable to a wasteful degree evolutionarily speaking…highly valuing the arts.” (Lisa)

Christ in the Desert Benedictine Monk and Abbot
Philip Lawrence, New Mexico
…slipping in and out of atheism….

21:30
HG Wells, and the fundamentalist reaction to him and others of his ilk.

on how science and religious circles have had an absolute unwillingness to be in one another presence and (have not wanted) to admit any weaknesses and (instead) just shout louder.

22:20

“The best apologetics can do is make Christianity credible and I don’t think it can make it inevitable.”

 

22:30 “Any belief in any ideal is still a leap of faith for anyone… like Justice, Love, Hope…” (Lisa)

23:30
on How people appeal to a standard outside themselves. (CS Lewis)

24:00
Theories of “survival behavior value” for Morality and Justice kicks the can. or it lands on simple absurdity and meaninglessness where suicide becomes a valid option.

25:00

Doug answering the question….”Is fundamentalism evolving”?

26:00
Richard Foster’s classic over 50 years old “Celebration of Discipline”

27:20
A story of a crucial pivot point for Doug.

28:20
How the psalmists had to cry out to God when the answers didn’t suffice any longer. For us, this is a return more than a departure.”

“I have gained the gift of being able to respect other traditions and admire things they bring us, but I talk to people across that spectrum that have that experience.”

29:30

“We go from trusting our denominational address or theology address to trusting Christ but it doesn’t mean an abandonment of it. Choosing a room in the same house to live in.”

30:10
Spiritual disciplines most meaningful to him:
On solitude and privacy (the difference). Henri Nouwen explains the difference.
 Henri Nouwen explains in “Out of Solitude” 

Doug: Solitude is for battle. Privacy is to be alone.

31:00
Demons come in our solitude (Desert Fathers). The outcome is awareness and purification.

32:00
Wanting “the listening heart” (what Solomon really asked God for).
on the importance of listening to God…

33:30
My Stockholm syndrome at parties. (Lisa)

34:00

“(My) Inability to be with people was driven by a failure to have a real self.”

34:30
“you are nearer to me than my own self.” Augustine

Doug realized:

“My real Self can’t be with people because it’s threatened by them, because they’re going to colonize my Self and going to make me into something I’m not. As opposed to having a real Self that can listen because God is protecting that Self.”

Father Francis Kelly Nemeck wrote
The way of Spiritual Direction (his director)
…Doug and I discuss Detachment and Holy Indifference…

39:00
St John of the Cross
(Exploring the spiritually obscured times and darker emotions.)

“the nada” (God is “no thing” the silence before God

40:00
…on staying in the problems and not panicking.

41:00
…on the crucial lesson from his mom that revealed his theology

44:30
(unknowing) Apophetic theology

“John of the Cross didn’t want that we should abandon the metaphors but move through them.”

45:00

“We cannot encapsulate God in our Theology.”

(which is terrifying but life-giving)

46:00
[GOOD NEWS]
Further exploration in a future episode of John of the Cross with Doug coming soon!


 

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Clearing away some “crap” about my name.

OKAY! I’m going to try to point everyone in the right direction…which incidentally is something a certain forefather of mine did NOT do.

Click to read more about my great (x20+) grandpa, Chris.


So, I’m reading my blog analytics, and I’m confronted with an old foe…of sorts.
It seemed a google search for some gastric-related product sent someone to my blog. Welcome to my whole life. My maiden name (and pen name) Colón is pronounced (basically) like this: CO – lone. (The other joke was, “What’s that smell? Is it Lisa Colón? Like eau de cologne…SO ingenious, right?)

Surprisingly…ahem…the word colon is well, confusing for a lot of people, and search engines, too.
Let’s be clear, the name Colón is not the same as the word used for a punctuation mark, or a semi-punctuation mark, or a main part of the large intestine. Oh, but WHAT a funny joke…especially at the doctor’s office. HA. HA. HA. Yeh, whatever. Nurses think they are endlessly funny, believe me.

You may have never heard of the Colón surname, at all, unless you are familiar with a certain Right Tackle football player and once Pittsburgh Steeler: Willie Colón (click for wiki).

We have an uncanny resemblance to each other, I KNOW.

Or you are particularly into Salsa music, and know Willie Colón, the Puerto Rican salsa music icon; a Nuyorican salsa musician, and trombonist.

Salsa musician Willie Colón

If  you are not familiar with Spain, Spanish, Spanish countries, or Central and South American countries, you are in new territory for this nomenclature.

Or!

You haven’t made the connection with all sorts of Columbian words (yes, the word Columbian relates to the “discoverer”..of a place where people already were…of the Americas…. Amerigo Vespucci…er…wait… I mean… “Christopher Columbus”.)

Those related words are Colonize, Colony, Colonel, Colonial, et cetera. Yes. They all originate with Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish name of Christopher Columbus.

Okay, now to clear it up, using the dictionary.

The word “colon” (pronounced COLE-on) which is NOT my name is 1 of 2 things:

colon 1 |ˈkōlən|
noun
a punctuation mark ( : ) indicating
• that a writer is introducing a quotation or a list of items.
• that a writer is separating two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first.
• a statement of proportion between two numbers : a ratio of 10:1.
• the separation of hours from minutes (and minutes from seconds) in a statement of time given in numbers : 4:30 p.m.
• the number of the chapter and verse respectively in biblical references : Exodus 3:2.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as a term in rhetoric denoting a section of a complex sentence, or a pause before it): via Latin from Greek kōlon ‘limb, clause.’
colon 2
noun Anatomy
the main part of the large intestine, which passes from the cecum to the rectum and absorbs water and electrolytes from food that has remained undigested. Its parts are called the ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid colon.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek kolon.

My name is Colón, which is different.

Colón |kəˈlōn|
the chief port of Panama, at the Caribbean Sea end of the Panama Canal; pop. 140,900.
colón |kəˈlōn|
noun ( pl. -lones |-ˈlōˌnās|)
the basic monetary unit of Costa Rica and El Salvador, equal to 100 centimos in Costa Rica and 100 centavos in El Salvador.

ORIGIN from Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish name of Christopher Columbus (see Columbus 2 ).

Why do I continue to use a name that is confusing?
Part of it is that I’m just silly. And, well, my married name is DeLay. It’s French, and poses its own set of problems. Delay. Yes,  perhaps I’m the repeated victim of circumstance. This is especially true if colon and delay are put together. Ya know?

And fittingly, this post has constipation…
But, it’s all so you can sit down, relax, and Wait…Wait…wait…

It’s all coming out better now in the end.

So, yeh, if you need a colon cleanser…as you can see, I’m here for you (in a sense).

Incidentally…Thomas Crapper took out nine plumbing patents 1881-1896. Click here for the truth about Crapper (With a name like that, Tom is my reason for some optimism and not taking myself too seriously.)

What do you think…a rose by any other name…blah blah blah???
If you have any “monicker stories”…share away!