President Obama recently announced that Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow will be part of the delegation he's sending to Sochi for the Winter Olympics.  Billie Jean, a famous women's tennis player and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, will participate in the opening ceremony.  Caitlin, winner of a bronze medal in
2006 and a silver medal in 2010 for the U.S.
women's hockey team in the Winter Olympics,
will participate in the closing ceremony.

At our Welcome Table in the Lobby there are books for sale by Matthew Fox, John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and others.  You'll also find Rick Dove's beautiful cards with nature photos.  Buying these will help support Evolve Chesapeake's ministry.

PHIL DONAHUE ON TRANSFORMATION, ON-SCREEN AND OFF

Krista Tippett, host: Phil Donahue's pioneering daytime talk show launched in 1967. He had a front row seat on the world so many of us are now reliving through Mad Men. I watched the Phil Donahue show when I was growing up. But it wasn't until I looked back at his work that I realized how substantive a lens it was on an entire era of social, personal and political transformation. His very first guest was the controversial face of public atheism, Madalyn Murray O'Hair. He engaged the emerging world of militant Black leaders. He presented a "gay man" to his audience as a human being. Above all, Phil Donahue's choice of guests and topics respected the intelligence of the housewives of his audience, who themselves were in a coming upheaval.
Mr. Donahue: .... I am impressed with the universe. I look up at night and I go wow. You know, we can't fathom this, their distances. The fact that every little pinpoint up there is a sun, a sun, except for our planets. They're all suns. Carl Sagan said that on the air one day and I thought, wow, I never thought of that.

Ms. Tippett: On your show?

Mr. Donahue: Uh-huh. So, you know, the order, the orbiting, the novas and the great swirls that the new photography is bringing down to us, beautiful. The horsehead nebula, the sombrero, and there are things up there that just fascinate. And that the light that we're seeing now left, what, 1000 years ago. I mean, that's how long it took light to get here. Whoa! It's hard for me to believe this is an accident. But I'm having more and more trouble dealing with a commanding God - I'm having more and more trouble dealing with original sin. I'm not even asked to be born and I'm born with sin? I'm born with a sin? But if you don't have that sin, then what do you do with Calvary? ....

 

    In the Gospel reading, Mt. 3:1-12, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, proclaiming: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And all the people come to him to be baptized.
    John the Baptist was The Announcer, who proclaimed Jesus's presence in the world.  His original message, in Matthew, is "Repent," which translates:  make for yourself a new way, turn around and go another direction, change your orientation in life, become your ideal self.  We should always be striving to act out of this place of repenting.
    At that time, God was present only in the Temple.  God was "contained" there in the Holy of Holies.  After Jesus's death, when the Church was born, the Church said that God is in Jesus.  Creation Spirituality says God is in all things and all things are in God.  God is as big as the cosmos, the universe.  Each and every person is a presence of God.
    The New Announcer may be a community of persons, rather than a single person.  It may be a community who is evolving, who sees the world a different way, who wants to live a different way and co-create this together.  We are called to community in the world to announce and bear witness to this!

We are stars

We carry their names

within us.

We travel the week

on our own path

yet we know

we are stars

and share the sky.

We are stars

We carry their names

within us.

We cross paths

with many for a moment

and others

for what could be called

a lifetime,

We are stars

We carry their names

within us.

When we are apart

we know that we're

still together

and our love

makes us whole.

We are stars

We carry their names

within us.

Merry Christmas to All...